Twenty Five Stories
by poestheblackcat
Summary: A collection of 25 stories for my 25th birthday, posted each day until the big day. UPDATED DAILY Last chapter: "Serendipity" Everyone's 25th birthdays. COMPLETE
1. 25 Stories

Edit 8/20 (Whoops, wrote "9/20" first, just realized it like, 2 weeks later, ha): Apparently, this story didn't show up for some people for a couple of hours, so if something like that happens, please give me a heads up so I can as support to look into it. Thanks, and sorry for the inconvenience!

I'm back!

So here we are again. Birthday fic. Every birthday since my twentieth, with the exception of last year (personal reasons – but it would have been "Twenty-Four Hours," fyi), I have written stories to match my age in both theme and quantity. These have been in the fandoms of _Supernatural _and _Leverage, _for the most part (check out my profile for the complete list, if you're interested)_. _

This year is the big twenty-five. That means twenty-five stories, one posted every day until the big day. I don't have much of a theme this year, beyond "free-for-all on all things to do with twenty-five." So that's twenty-five anything, from the actual quantity 25, to 25%, $25, to quarters (the fraction and the coin, as well as other usages of the word).

Also, another note: A few of the stories that I've written so far for this are connected to previous stories written by me. "Sticky Little Fingers" 'verse and "McDonald Boys" 'verse, to name a couple. Also, there are a couple of crossovers (aforementioned "McDonald Boys" is already a crossover with _Angel_, and a _Firefly _crossover may make an appearance). As of right now, I have only about half of the stories done, so hopefully, I'll be able to keep up. If you have any ideas for 25, please shoot me a PM!

I haven't written fic in a while, so please bear with me! I'm still trying to get back into fic-writing shape.

It's an hour early where I am (still the 19th), but I need to go to bed, so here goes!

Summary: A collection of 25 stories for my 25th birthday, posted each day until the big day. This chapter: "25 Stories" Hardison, tall buildings. You do the math.

* * *

. . . . .

**25 Stories**

"Now, Hardison!"

"But I ain't in my zen place yet. Can't be all jumpin' offa tall-ass buildings without bein' in my zen place. Cuz it's my zen place. And it's kinda high, and I got sensitive equipment on me, an'..."

"Dammit, Hardison! Just jump already 'fore I climb up there and kick your sensitive zen place in the ass!"

"That's not conductive to productive behavior, Eliot. How would you feel if I threatened you while you were about to set out on a terrifying and probably very short journey vertically downwards, probably to your death?"

The silence is answer enough. (Actually, the silence isn't so much silence but lack of speech punctuated by the sounds of grinding teeth.)

"Hardison," Sophie's voice comes over the line like cool silk, soothing all ruffled feathers, "Don't you think that a man who could face Russian diamond smugglers is man enough to take a tiny little step off a rather small building to which he is tethered rather tightly?"

The sputters on the hacker's end of the com - nay, the lack of speech altogether - says volumes, mostly to the tune of 'Et tu,_ Sophie?'_

"Small building?!" he finally says. "Small?!"

"It's only twenty-five stories, Hardison," scoffs Parker. "A baby could do it."

"Yeah," Hardison agrees, "and then go splat into baby pancake! Anyone could splat pretty damn easily, if you wanna put it that way!"

"No one is going to splat, Hardison," cuts in Nate.

"'Cept Hardison, if he doesn't jump offa the damn building!" growls Eliot under his breath.

"Eliot," warns Nate lightly, "Now Hardison, you don't have to jump..."

"Damn straight."

"...if you're too scared to."

Silence.

"I hate you all."

Stifled giggles.

"Laugh it up. You just laugh it up. Scared? I'll give you scared. Scared my ass. Just jump off. Just waaaaaahhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHH!"

"Did anyone else see that?" asks Nate from his spot on the street.

Eliot sounds amused as he says, "Damn idiot slipped."

"On what? His shoelaces?" giggles Parker.

"I didn't know he was that flexible," comments Sophie thoughtfully, "Have you been training with him, Parker?"

"No, but maybe we should work on rappelling more. That was the worst jump I've ever seen."

"I hate you. I hate all of you."

"Finish the job, Hardison."

. . . . .

* * *

AN: So how was that? *hides* *peeks through fingers*


	2. Interstate 25

Summary: Eliot drives on the Interstate 25 and reminisces.

AN: The I-25 is a highway in the US that goes north-south from Wyoming to New Mexico. I've never been on it, personally, so if I get something glaringly wrong, let me know!

* * *

**Interstate 25**

Eliot drives when he can get away with it. Not that he doesn't like flying, or is scared of it _(Parker). _He just enjoys driving more. Not rush hour traffic in the city, but out on the highways, where there aren't too many cars, and (not to sound like a country song) where the wind blowing through his hair smells just a little bit fresher and a whole lot like freedom.

They have a job in New Mexico, and their next rendezvous is in about a week, up in South Dakota. The I-25 will get him there, most of the way there, anyway. It's been a while since he's driven on the 25.

He's got some pretty good memories of that highway.

Mostly good, anyway.

. . . . .

He's little, real little, too young to remember properly, even.

They're in the truck, Daddy's beat-up ol' Ford, and Eliot's just _so_ excited.

They're gonna go and visit Mama's sister, Aunt Edith, up in Why-omin', an' they gotta take the 44 an' the 70 an' the 25 ta get there.

That's really all Eliot remembers of that particular trip, except that his baby sister Lucy just cried and cried the whole way there, an' Eliot kept gettin' in trouble for jumpin' around, an' Mama tole Daddy that no way is she ever doin' this again, not with two little m-o-n-s-t-e-r-s in the tiny cab of the truck.

It's funny, 'cuz Eliot knows what that spells, but he guesses Mama just didn't wanna scare the baby by sayin' that there's monsters in the truck. Must be invisible monsters. But Eliot ain't gonna let them get past him. Baby Lucy may be stinky and loud, but she's _his_ little sister, and those monsters just better watch out.

They'd better.

. . . . .

The next trip on the 25 is down south for Grandmaw Doolittle's funeral.

She'd lived in Santa Fe her whole life, and raised seven children in a little whitewashed hut with no husband, and still managed to put enough food on the table to feed all the children, every day. Every little sock had been neatly darned, every holey knee patched up, and every shoe spit-shined. She'd organized church bake sales, and was the head of the women's quilting club.

Grandmaw Doolittle was Respectable, with a capital R, and Respected, to boot.

When she died, all the children, all the grandchildren and great-grandchildren, all of them gathered in one enormous gathering of Doolittles and Spencers and Garcias and Bowdens and Radcliffes and Quinteros, from where they'd scattered all over the United States, Canada, and Mexico, and in the case of cousin Hank, India, where he'd been studying abroad and turning into one of them darned hippies. There was much hugging and crying and reminiscing about Grandmaw and growing up in Santa Fe. And food. Boy, was there a lot of food.

It wasn't all sad. Grandmaw wasn't a big advocate of sad. She was too busy being busy to be sad. She was a firm believer in Get Off Yer Lazy Bum And Get To Work and A Kind Word Or Act Can Work A Miracle, but most of all, No One's Too Busy To Take Some Time To Laugh Every Day.

What Eliot recalls best about the whole thing is that on the way back, he and his cousin Brandon switched places in their respective parents' vehicles, and Eliot had spent a happy afternoon driving up the I-25 halfway through Colorado, giggling in the back seat with his other cousins at the obliviousness of The Parents.

Of course, The Parents caught on soon enough, and the fun ended. Oh, boy, did it end.

But by the end of the decade, The Big Switch had become one of those family stories you tell at every reunion, and he and Brandon would share an identical twinkling blue-eyed grin at every retelling of it.

. . . . .

They're going to Aunt Edith's again, and this time, it's just him and Lucy with Mama.

Mama and Daddy had been fighting _again_, and Mama had said that enough was enough.

She always says that. He's sick of it.

It's nighttime now, and the sounds of the wheels whirring on the asphalt are a little bit like a lullaby and a whole lot like a nightmare.

"Is Daddy gonna meet us there?" Lucy whispers to him, quiet-like, so Mama won't hear.

_"__Sure,"_ Eliot wants to say, _"Yeah, sure he is."_ And _"Everything's gonna be okay, Goose."_

But he doesn't. "No," he says stiffly. "No, he ain't."

The highway hums underneath the sedan's wheels, lulling him into a fitful sleep.

. . . . .

It's the summer they'll remember for the rest of their lives.

They're young - but not too young - and they've got a car, just Georgie's cousin Luke's beat-up old Chevy, but it'll get 'em to wherever they want to go. And they can go anywhere.

Five kids, every last one of 'em under 20 but over 16, and they're on their own on the road - no adults to tell them no - and they've got the whole summer, and it's gonna be great.

Georgie leans out the window so that he's half hanging out of it, and shouts, "Wa-hooooooo!" at the cars passing on the other side of the I-25.

Luke, who's at the wheel, swears and yells at him, "Get back inside, you moron! Sit yer ass down! Gonna get yer head chopped off, see how you like that."

Georgie grins and sits back down, carrot-orange hair wild and wind-ruffled, and Aimee and Luke's girlfriend Sally roll their eyes, but Eliot knows exactly what Georgie means.

He gets it. They're young, and they're alive and free, and it's great.

He starts rolling the window down on his side, too, but catches Aimee's forbidding eye. He gives her a lazy grin, and just leans his elbow on the open windowsill. He reaches his other hand out to take hers in his, just for the sake of holding it, and she smiles at him now, and it's...

He could live like this forever.

. . . . .

He's back home on leave, and it isn't the restful, happy time he'd thought - daydreamed about in the hot desert somewhere in the Middle East- it would be.

Brandon's dead.

_Dead._

Eliot's cousin had been driving on the I-25 - the 25, of all places - going a hundred-and-ten, and that's just stupid, Brandon. That's goddamn, frickin' _stupid, _man.

He'd had a fight with his girl and had gone out for a drive to clear his head.

So had the lady on the other side of the highway (fought with her husband, in her case).

And the girl who looked like any other hitchhiker but was really just standing in the middle of the road trying to die...

The other driver had swerved...

The girl lived, got away without a scratch.

Brandon and the woman driver? Not so lucky.

Stupid.

Eliot has a talk with the girl. He threatens her, sure, and he feels real bad about scaring a little girl, but goddamn it, Brandon's dead, and so he threatens that girl into living, tells her to live for the people she killed and the people they left behind, and tells her not to dare take another life.

Live for herself.

The girl's all blotchy from crying, sobbing, her nose running.

But she nods, and he tells her one other thing: that he's gonna hold her to that promise. Understand?

Becca nods again.

And then Eliot's out of her life, for now. For now, he cruises along the I-25 at a cool hundred-and-ten and takes his hat off in the memory of his cousin.

. . . . .

He races down the highway, heart soaring, because his baby sister Lucy's got a baby of her own now, a beautiful little boy, and he's gonna be seein' 'em in a coupla hours.

Baby Sister Lucy Goosey's got a baby! And hell, no way he'll be allowed to call her Goosey now 'cause she's a mama now and she'll be gettin' ideas about how she's all grown up on account of that.

Nah. Big brother trumps all.

. . . . .

He's on that highway again, so he drops by to see Becca. She's doing pretty well, grown up into a right beauty. Got her nursing degree, spent a few summers with the Red Cross and looking forward to more. And she's found herself a nice boyfriend who's a doctor - they're gonna get married soon.

She's been doing a real good job keeping that promise she made to him all those years back.

She serves up the coffee and cookies, and right there, sitting at the little kitchen table in the crowded little apartment, she asks him if he'll maybe be around for the wedding, and if maybe he could come, maybe he'll sort of walk her down the aisle?

It hits him right between the eyes, it does.

He'd known that her daddy'd died long before the accident, but damn, really? Him?

After he's done being all confused and flattered about it, he asks if she'd asked her fiance about it, and her mama.

She says that he'd given her a second chance at life, shoved her into that second chance, really, so it was only fair. Now was he or not?

Well, he can't really say anything to that, too embarrassed, really, so he makes her a promise to be at a certain place at a certain time, and spends the rest of his drive down the interstate with a bittersweet little smile on his face.

_Brandon_, he thinks, _sorry ya never got your chance, but maybe you'll be glad to know that she's trying her best to do good in the world, and that's the most anyone can ask of her. _

He whistles between his teeth for a few miles, and decides that he has enough time to visit the grave and pay his respects. He'll tell his mischief-loving cousin about this new crew he's been spending his days with (by "tell," it's more "say mentally, like a prayer," since he doesn't want anyone living to hear and arrest his criminal ass). Brandon would like that.

. . . . .

_Good times and bad times, _he thinks,_ that's what life's made up of. Just gotta make the best of it, like Grandmaw D used to say._

It's with a touch of reluctance that he takes the exit to the I-90 west in Wyoming, so he can go west into South Dakota to the meet-up.

. . . . .

* * *

AN: Cookies to whoever gets the Christian Kane reference! I totally "borrowed" part of the plot for a bit of this.

Anon Review Reply:

dr jones: Hi, you! Wow, all my old readers are coming back, even after a year of mostly radio silence. Thanks!


	3. SLF: Fat Quarter

Summary: This story is about quilting. And family. And Eliot turning into mush when it comes to family, especially babies. It is also set in the "Sticky Little Fingers" 'verse, which begins with "Sticky Little Fingers" and continues in select chapters in "Twenty Three Chromosomes." They can all be found in my profile. The latest story in the series is Ultrawoman's awesome "Teenage Kicks." Reading these is not necessary to understand this story, but it might be helpful in helping you see who these babies grow up to be.

Quilting glossary (simplified):

Fat quarters: One yard of fabric cut into quarters is 18" x 22". These are sold as "fat quarters." (There's also "charm packs," "jelly rolls," and other awesome varieties of already-cut fabric.)

Batting: Cotton "stuffing" that goes between two layers of fabric in a standard quilt. Put simply, a quilt usually has a front side, a back side, and batting in between.

Binding: Strips of fabric that are sewn on around the quilt to "bind" all the layers together.

To see the different kinds of quilts that I use in this story, just google them. It's worth it! There are some really beautiful quilts out there.

Note: Quarter=0.25, hence its appearance in this collection. Sorry for confusing you, **zippy zany!**

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. . . . . . . . . . . . .

**Fat Quarter**

Eliot unfolds the 18x22-inch pieces of fabric and spreads them out onto his working space. He plans out his next project in his head, a kaleidoscope of squares, rectangles, and triangles in contrasting colors arranging and rearranging themselves in his mind.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

When Nate and Sophie announce that they are going to have a baby, the remaining team members are ecstatic.

Parker turns into even more of a magpie than usual, stealing anything small and shiny that catches her eye, as well as anything baby-related that seems even vaguely interesting. By the time little Irene Charlotte Ford is born, she has accumulated quite a large collection of tiny silver spoons, complicated baby mobiles, antique silver diaper safety pins, and creepy baby doll heads (don't ask). She also says that she's going to teach the baby how to rappel and pick locks. (Readers will be glad to hear that the baby - in fact, all the children born to the Leverage team - does indeed learn how to rappel, pick locks, crack safes, hack into computers, con, and fight.)

Hardison looks up everything he can find about pregnancy, prenatal care, labor, and babies. He even watches labor videos, even though he claims to be mentally scarred for life as a result. He invents gadgets for the expectant parents; the most useful of these is one that allows Sophie to see how her unborn baby is doing on her phone with the use of a cunning miniature ultrasound device.

Eliot, as always, takes a practical approach to helping Nate and Sophie get ready for baby Irene's arrival. He plans nutritious meals for Sophie and invents healthy snacks that mimic whatever it is that she is craving. He helps set up the nursery (actually helps, as opposed to the way Parker and Hardison "help"), and even relieves Nate of "going shopping with Sophie" duty on occasion (but only very rarely because Eliot ain't that much of a masochist, no sirree). It is Eliot who, most importantly, acts as the sole intermediary (traitors) when plates start flying at Nate's head and Nate turns to his whiskey glass, which, of course, results in more flying dishes and cutlery.

When Eliot has a few minutes to spare here and there between the busyness of the whole circus, he also begins fashioning a quilt for the new baby.

His mama had made quilts, and so had her mama, all the way back through the generations. Eliot had learned to sew at a very early age (but poor Mama never would have believed how he'd put those skills to use over the painful, bloody years), and his fingers remembered what he had thought he'd long forgotten.

The quilt grows slowly, folded and pieced together by hand - he refuses to give in and buy a sewing machine because if a plain ol' needle and thread were good enough for his mama, then they're good enough for him - with painstaking care. A quarter of the way through, Eliot curses choosing such a complicated pattern for his first quilt sewn on his own for the first time in almost thirty years.

Still, he perseveres, and at the end of it all, just barely in time for the birth, he finishes the quilt.

It's a Cathedral Windows pattern, with jewel-colored panels filling each "window" like stained glass. He likes this pattern because the thickness of the quilt is made up of the layers of fabric that is folded together like origami and stitched together square by square, instead of using the conventional cotton batting as stuffing.

And the outcome? Elegant and beautiful.

But not as beautiful as the sight of little baby Irene wrapped up in his creation.

The quilt is met with oohs and ahhs, and much thanks from the new parents - though a comment from Nate about his choice in the quilt pattern (and how the hell did Nate know what the pattern was called, anyway?) has to be countered with a snarky reply about how it could have been a Drunkard's Path quilt instead.

And with that, a tradition is born.

When Harrison gets Parker pregnant (alright, alright, two to tango and all, but it's totally Hardison's fault), there's a wedding, a big white wedding, which Sophie plans with much glee, and to which the bride fails to show up. When the groom disappears with a cut-off gurgle as well, they figure it out, and they all trek out and up to the top of the very highest building in the city.

Parker, having gotten cold feet, had stolen Hardison and hauled him up to the roof, where she insists she is comfortable, and isn't everyone always saying that they want her to be comfortable with her big huge belly and swollen ankles and everything? Huh? Huh?!

So since it's likely that Hardison's life is in at least some danger now, with that chokehold she has him in, they all agree that Parker and Harrison should, no,_ must_ get married hanging from the top of the very tall building...upside-down. And swinging in the 50 mph wind. (Harrison has to be woken up to mumble his "I do," but all in all, it's a nice wedding.)

When baby Carat "Carrie" Harrison is born, she is wrapped in a Flying Geese quilt, in honor of her mother's love of high places, and the way she had stared longingly out at the birds freewheeling in the sky all during her pregnancy. The fabrics he chooses are all in patterns that the girl at the quilt shop assures him are geeky enough to satisfy the geekiest nerd in the world.

For Franc "Frankie" Hardison, the next baby born to the Leverage family, Eliot makes a Crazy Quilt because...well, because. It's Parker. And Hardison. And they're this poor kid's parents. Eliot doesn't finish this one on time because a Crazy Quilt is frickin' complicated and he was crazy to even start it (that's why it's called what it is). _And_ little Frankie was born too early, so there was no way he could have finished it in time anyway. But when he does get it all quilted and bound up all nice around the edges, it's beautiful. Crazy and beautiful, just like the baby. Just like all the babies.

Baby Ruble Hardison (by this point, _everyone_ knows that Mom names the babies in this relationship) gets a Diamonds in Squares quilt when she is born. A series of squares turned on their points, surrounded by triangles - colorful faceted gems, perfect for the precious baby girl nicknamed Ruby.

When Parker gets pregnant again, Eliot starts working on the quilt immediately because he knows from experience that four kids all clamoring for their beloved Uncle Eliot's attention, which he always gives wholeheartedly, can wreak havoc on his precious quilt-making time. When the news comes that it's twins this time, he throws a "Dammit, Hardison!" their father's way, and works doubly hard on getting _two _quilts done in time. This time, he chooses to make matching Star quilts for the both of them, with the colors reversed so that one would be identifiable from the other in the matched set.

It's the last addition to the second generation of the Leverage team that throws Eliot for a loop. A phone call out of the blue reveals that he, the man who'd thought that he'd always be an uncle and never anything more, had in fact fathered a child. Not just a baby, but a half-grown boy with a dying mother.

With all that happens in so short a time - the total shock of finding out that he happens to have been a father for the last decade of his life without knowing it, the death and funeral of Michael's mother, bringing him home so that he can try his hand at doing his best to not ruin the poor kid's life - he _completely _forgets about quilt-making until the older three Hardison-Parker kids and Irene show up at his doorstep five minutes after he and Michael get home and _demand _to know what quilt he's going to make for Michael.

Because every new kid in the family gets a quilt. It's a Rule. It's Tradition.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

He casts a sideway glance at Michael, who looks all too much like he did at that age, a bit on the small side with unmanageable hair a little on the long side.

He gets a look in return, a look that plainly says, _"Dude, you _sew?"

"Uh," he starts, but he's quickly interrupted by kids trying to be helpful.

"Uncle Eliot makes a quilt every time there's a new baby-" begins Irene.

"Reney, he doesn't look like a baby," Frankie interrupts.

"That's because he's not," Carrie corrects her brother. "He's a year older than Irene."

"I _know _that!" little Frankie exclaims, "We all looked up his birth certificate and things before he got here."

"Ix-nay on the acking-hay," Carrie says very audibly out of the corner of her mouth.

"Why?"

"Like I was saying," Irene huffs, "Uncle Eliot makes quilts for all the new kids-"

"Only the kids in our family," interjects Frankie jealously.

"Guys," Eliot says when there's an opening in the chattering, before it turns into bickering like it so often does among the kids, and also because Michael is starting to look seriously weirded out, "Not now, okay? Our flight just got in, and we're a little tired. Maybe tomorrow or in a coupla days, huh?"

So he herds them out and closes the door on their pouting faces (with much difficulty, softie that he is).

Michael doesn't mention anything all through dinner - in fact he doesn't talk about it at all until a few months later, when he brings it up, shyly, hesitantly, as if afraid of being thought too _girly_ to be Eliot's kid. He wants to learn, he says, just 'cause, he shrugs, just 'cause it seems like a useful thing to learn. Might come in handy later, never know.

So Eliot teaches him, the way his mama taught him. The small fingers are slightly clumsy around the needle at first, but they quickly learn the movements, the long hours of just up-and-down, the pinning together. The naturally creative mind bends to accommodate the new ideas about colors and textures and patterns, and most of all, the _meanings_ that can fill a quilt.

All the while, Eliot tells his son stories about his mama, his grandma, and the old stories they'd told him while they taught him how to quilt, passed down from generation to generation.

And together, they pull together the fabric, light and dark, and plan. They cut and pin, and sew it all together, slowly, painfully slow, but the boy perseveres and in the end, he proudly (and shyly) shows off his new quilt to his new family, to whom he has become one of their own.

"What's it called?" Frankie wants to know. "It's gotta be called something."

"It's a Log Cabin quilt," Michael says. "Dad said it would be an easy for me to make for my first one."

He doesn't tell them that a few pieces from his late mother's clothes have made it into the quilt. That's…that's _personal._

"Are you going to make more?" Carrie asks, tilting her head, "I think you should. It's good."

The Hardison-Parker kids (the ones who are old enough to talk, anyway) are in agreement on this at least, a rarity.

"Ooh, make me one, too!"

"Bleee!" Ruby still didn't quite have the hang of coherent speech just yet.

Irene eyes the quilt critically. Michael unconsciously holds his breath, as if waiting for her approval.

She nods. "I like it. It's really nice. The balance of the colors is especially beautiful."

He thought so, too. He'd worked especially hard to get that part right.

Michael beams the rest of the day and falls asleep under his new quilt with a proud smile on his face.

Eliot looks in on him later, and does his nightly routine of smoothing away the tangled curls from the smooth forehead and whispering a prayer over the sleeping figure. He tugs the quilt up over the boy to keep him warm, and thanks his mama and grandma for giving him this gift. He touches a panel of flowery fabric and asks the boy's mother to watch over their son, just in case he's not enough.

Michael stirs under his touch. "Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_Epilogue_

On the occasion of Michael and Irene's wedding many years later (after a long period of UST, or actually, more like URRUOMGJKAHSAST [Unresolved-Resolved-Re-Unresolved-Oh-My-Gawd-Just-Kiss-And-Have-Sex-Already-Sexual-Tension]), Eliot proudly and carefully fashions a king-sized Double Wedding Ring quilt for them out of all the scraps that he has kept from his previous quilts and children's clothes long outgrown over the years.

Well...not _all_ the scraps.

He keeps some for the next baby quilt, just in case there's...well, you know. Just in case.


	4. SLF: Swear Jar

Summary: The Leverage team starts up a swear jar in support of PG-13 language for the sake of the next generation. "Sticky Little Fingers" 'verse again. Pre-SLF.

For this one, you don't need to know anything about the SLF 'verse to get it.

(This story is in this collection because 25 - 0.25 - quarter[fraction] - quarter[coin])

* * *

**Swear Jar**

It all begins with the baby. If it's a girl, she'll be Irene; if it's a boy, Simon*.

Sophie bans swearing, at least within the hearing of her growing belly. And since a hormonal Sophie is as terrifying as - no, more terrifying than - Annie Kroy, the remaining members of the team try very hard not to swear.

Really, they do.

For those potty-mouthed thieves who forget and drop a b-word or d-word or, Sophie forbid, an f-word, there is the Swear Jar.

The d-word with biblical allusions will cost the swearer a fine of $5. The h-word also has a $5 fine. Darn and heck are perfectly acceptable substitutions.

Uttering the b-word that technically means 'an illegitimate child' would cost the blasphemer $15.

They all say these at one point or another, and grudgingly hand over the money to be stuffed into the bulging Swear Jar, grumbling only when Sophie won't hear.

The other b-word generally used to describe either a female dog or...well, you know...That word would cost the user a cool $50 because it is a demeaning word against women.

Parker is the most common culprit in this case; all of the men on the team had been raised to have a healthy respect for women (and their tempers). Of course, this being Parker, she generally somehow avoids paying the fine. And if she does have to pay, the sum she'd forked over, in addition to some interest, would mysteriously disappear from the Swear Jar within the next day or so.

And the f-word?

Just don't say it. Save yourself (and your wallet) the trouble and don't say it.

$#%&

The Swear Jar lasts until Sophie goes into labor, during which she hurls such insults at Nate that she incurs enough fines to fill a second Swear Jar (or Bob, as Parker calls it...[Why? It's Parker!]) all the way to the brim.

In Benjamins**.

And because Sophie always wriggles out of things, the Swear Jar is thereby abolished.

$#%&

* * *

Author Notes:

*After Irene Adler and Simon Templar of literary fame (thieves/con artists).

**Benjamins: $100 US bills have Benjamin Franklin's portrait on them, hence the nickname.


	5. McD: Five by Five

Summary: Eliot and Lindsey run into Faith Lehane. Angel/Leverage "McDonald Boys" verse, post-"Sky's Gonna Open" and "Tricks and Treats."

You may want to read my story "The Sky's Gonna Open" before reading this. It's an _Angel/Leverage_ crossover, post-_Angel_ and during _Leverage_ (Season 4-5-ish). If you don't want to read the whole big ol' thing, here's a brief summary: Eliot gets deaged, his twin brother Lindsey McDonald shows up and tries to undo the spell but can't, Eliot blackmails Lindsey into sticking around with the Leverage team. In "Tricks and Treats," which is much shorter at only one chapter, Angel finds out that Lindsey isn't dead, beats him up a bit, de-aged Eliot comes to the rescue, and the animosity between Angel and Lindsey is somewhat resolved...for now.

For a list of the entire "McDonald Boys" 'verse in order, check out my profile.

"Five by five" is something Faith says. It means, roughly, "everything's okay."

(This story is in this collection because 5x5=25.)

* * *

**Five by Five**

"Well if it isn't Lawyer Boy," says a sultry voice in a snide tone behind Lindsey.

"Dig the hair," it continues, when he whirls around to face its smirking owner with a growl. "You should grow it out longer like Sexy Twin."

"'Sexy Twin'?!"

A beat, then Lindsey's eyes betray him, stealing a sharp glance down at the midget currently ogling the black leather-clad woman from his vantage point of roughly the height of Lindsey's waist (and therefore about the height of her ass, if she'd only turn a little bit that way).

"Oh. Hell. No." He levels a glare at the brunette, whose smirk has become slightly puzzled at his reaction.

"My brother? You know my brother? Did you sleep with him? Know what, don't answer that," he mutters, shaking his head.

He would be more cautious about talking like that to one of the most dangerous women in the world, but any thoughts about his brother's former...habits make annoyance his primary reaction and eclipses every other feeling. It's a brother thing.

"I'd sleep with just about everyone. At least, that's what people say. Maybe I'll sleep with you, too, if you're good," Faith Lehane purrs, still trying to figure Lawyer Boy out.

He'd been cool as a cucumber when she'd beaten the mother-lovin' life out of some poor schmuck whose name she didn't even know right in front of him years ago, but he seems completely different now. Scruffier with that hair and the flannel and denim, and apparently, also easily irritated. But less tense, funnily enough.

And that kid. Looks all of seven years old but the way he's looking at her? Give him a decade or two and she'd be either smacking that leer off of the cute little face or kissing it off.

And then she looks at Micky D and then at Junior and then, quickly, back again, and says, "Well hot damn. Had me fooled for a minute there. How'd that happen?"

While her mind had been working, putting all the pieces together, the two of them had been bickering without speaking. That is, they'd been having one of those silent conversations that turns into an argument without anyone opening his mouth.

"How'd what happen?" they both squeak, and if that isn't a damn giveaway, then what is? Twins always do the talking in sync thing, or so she'd heard. And those two? Definitely twins, despite the significant age gap.

Lindsey glares at Eliot, silently sending, _"Let me handle this, dumbass,"_ to his now much younger twin brother, who flips him a metaphorical finger in response.

"Faith. It's been a while," Lindsey begins, starting to weave his lie, "Took me by surprise there. This is my son, Eliot. And yes, I named him after my idiot brother. He's his godfather, y'see? Eliot, say hi to my friend Faith," he says, giving the boy a small push forward.

To his credit, little Eliot does give Faith a cherubic smile through gritted teeth, and chirrups a syrupy "Hi Faith, nice ta meet you, I'm seven" at her.

An eyebrow rises high on Faith's forehead, soon followed by the other one. Her crossed arms say without words, _"You're not seriously trying to con me after all that, are ya?"_

Eliot's stiff grin drops abruptly and he huffs a _'ya got me there'_ sigh. "Witch," he explains, "Age-regression spell. And yeah, I'm stuck until I grow out of it."

"That sucks ass," Faith says with surprising sympathy, "And ya gotta live with him 24-7?" She jerks her head at the indignant Lindsey. "Ouch."

"Yeah," Eliot agrees, "But he's not so bad once you deflate his head a little."

"A little?" Faith snorts. "It would take a bit more than that to make him tolerable."

"I am still here, ya know," Lindsey huffs, slightly petulantly.

"Yeah, about that," Faith says, finally facing him again, "Heard you were dead. 'Good riddance,' I thought. Too bad it wasn't true."

Faith is surprised, no, shocked to see Eliot, who until then, in her experience, had been rather quiet and pleasant (and dangerously hot) company, despite his reputation, and definitely not a dick like his brother, suddenly try to rush at her with a snarl.

She's more than fast enough to defend herself but Lindsey moves faster; thinking back, he might even have started moving before Eliot reacted, as if he'd anticipated the lunge.

"Would ya quit attacking every single person who even comes close to threatening me? I _am_ capable of defending myself, ya know," the former lawyer scolds, almost lazily, as if this is an everyday occurrence. The seven-year-old dangles in the air by the back of his shirt like a naughty kitten. "It's annoying."

"Big temper, little body," Lindsey says as a conversational aside to Faith, "You know how that goes. He's a bit overprotective."

"Overprotective?" Faith says, amused now at the faces the struggling little kid is making in his attempts to get out of his brother's grip. "More like overkill. Every threat?"

"You oughta see what happens if I get a paper cut," Lindsey drawls with a wink.

"You done laughing at my expense?" Eliot says over Faith's giggle. "Lemme go."

Lindsey drops Eliot and musses his hair up in a big brotherly fashion that obviously irritates the now younger brother to no end.

"So not dead?" Faith prompts, with less of that _'shoulda stayed dead'_ tone and more of just plain curiosity.

Lindsey shrugs. "Rumors of my death and all that," he says. "It would take more than Angel to kill me."

So he says, but Faith catches a flicker of something that says that the rumored betrayal had at least stung a bit.

"So I guess Angel doesn't know," she says to dig a bit.

Eliot snorts at that point. "Nah, he does. But Lindsey talked his way out of it." There's a touch of pride in the way the boy says this, like an older brother who's proud of his younger sibling's ability to talk his way out of anything.

"He did," says Faith, trying to work that out. It's more repeating what Eliot had said than questioning it. Bizarre and bizarrer.

Lindsey shrugs. "Told him I'm walking the straight and narrow, just trying to raise my kid right."

"And he believed you?"

Lindsey nods at Eliot. "Exhibit A."

"And are you?"

"Yeah," nods Lindsey, "except he's my brother, not my kid. And the path is more only pretty straight and relatively narrow. But it's an improvement, I guess. Not any better or worse than what he used to do with Angel Investigations back in the day."

Faith stares, her face inscrutable. "Huh."

"You gonna beat the shit outta me for no reason now?" Lindsey asks, as if talking about her plans for the summer and not referencing her reputation for doing just that. But that was more when she was a rebellious kid, not a mature, yet badass, adult.

"Maybe," she says, but it's just for show. She does have a rep to keep up, after all.

"Maybe, huh?" Lindsey says with a smile.

"You're really doing the Angel Investigations gig?" Faith can't help asking. It _is _Lindsey McDonald, after all. Left hand of Evil, _et cetera, et cetera?_

The former lawyer's smile gets a little wider. "We're called Leverage Consulting and Associates. Here's my card."

"Oh god, please don't tell me your motto is 'We help the helpless,'" Faith takes the business card and says with an expressive roll of her eyes.

"Hell no," Eliot says, "We don't have one."

"Really?" Lindsey says, "I thought it was 'We provide Leverage.' Or 'Let's go steal a...something.'"

"'Steal a something,'" Faith finds herself repeating Lindsey again.

"Yeah, something. It's different every time. 'Let's go steal a country,' 'Let's go steal a leopard,' 'Let's go steal a coffee mug' - you name it, we've stolen it, pretty much," Eliot explains.

"But it's stealing from oppressors and giving to the oppressed," clarifies Lindsey, the perpetual lawyer. "Classic Robin Hood, which is different from potentially breaking the law for the oppressors to oppress the oppressed even more."

"And that makes everything all better, huh?"

"Not _all_ better," says Eliot.

"Never all better," agrees Lindsey, "but a little bit at a time just might be enough to keep the dark at bay."

It's funny; these guys, in their time, have been some of the most feared men in the world in their respective circles, but now, seeing those earnest expressions? It's funny. They - both of them, Eliot with his childish round face and tumbling dark blond curls, and Lindsey with his stubble and scruffy hair grown out a bit and that earring hoop he's added to one ear - they just both look so damn _earnest_ that she can't help but laugh at them.

Of course, even funnier are the subsequent matching scowling pouts.

"What?"

"You're adorable," she says, grinning.

So are the identical glares that she gets for that.

"So about the 'maybe' kicking his ass thing?" Eliot demands, "Are ya or aren'tcha?"

"El," Lindsey hisses, mindful now that Faith _is_ a slayer after all. "'Maybe' means maybe. Just leave it at that."

"Well, I gotta make sure 'cause you're a sissy wuss," explains the much-younger twin.

"That's slander," Lindsey sniffs, "Am not."

Eliot retorts, "Then why are girls always kicking your ass?"

"Says who?" huffs Lindsey, "I demand you produce witnesses!"

Eliot counts them off on his fingers. "The blind chick, coupla vampires in frilly lace dresses..."

"Vampires. Not exactly girls," says Lindsey, with _'ha!'_ in his voice, "There were no weapons in that wine cellar."

"Blind chick?"

"Supernaturally enhanced."

"Gretchen Maldrin in third grade?"

"Shut up."

Argument won, fair and square, Eliot faces Faith again with a tiny scowl. "Well? Are ya gonna beat him up? I gotta know, so I can be prepared."

"Five by five, kiddo," she grins at Lindsey's rolling eyes, "I don't beat up sissy wusses."

* * *

Anon review replies:

leezmatt and dr jones (for "Coffee Break"): Yeah...about that...no inspiration, no update. I kind of lost my train of thought, so to speak, for that story. When I write more, I'll post it asap. Thanks for the support!


	6. 25 Years Ago

Summary: The Leverage team, 25 years ago…

* * *

**25 Years Ago**

Twenty-five years ago...

The toddler sits on the cockroach-strewn floor, playing with his scratched-up colorful letter blocks. The sound of fighting from the next room doesn't disrupt his concentration as he carefully stacks one wooden block on top of another. It's a sound that he has been used to hearing all his life.

The door slams open, and his mother rushes in and snatches him up. He utters a disappointed, angry cry as the wooden blocks tumble down, clacking against each other as they fall.

That's the day Social Services takes Alec Hardison away from his drunk, abusing father and his streetwalking, abused mother and puts him in the foster care system.

. . .

Parker is already in the system when we find her, twenty-five years ago.

This place isn't too bad. They actually try, and they don't hurt her and her brother. Parker's little brother is everything in her life.

Everything.

They're playing on the street with the rusty old bicycle that their foster parents keep for the use of any foster kids they might have. Parker is running alongside the bike, holding onto it so her brother doesn't fall off.

She's good at making sure he doesn't fall off of things, or bump into doors, or fall down the stairs, or any of the myriad of things that people say happen to Parker.

"Lemme go!" her brother yells, "I can go by myself! I'm old enough now!"

He's not, but he says it again, so she does, reluctantly, but she does.

She doesn't see the car coming.

. . .

The boy leans against the rough whitewashed walls of the small-town grocery store, and takes a drag from the cigarette he's holding in his fingers. He holds the smoke in, trying to savor the flavor of it, but five seconds of that and he's bent over hacking his lungs out.

The older boys laugh at him and hit him on the back.

"Aw, go home, kid," one of them snickers, "Go home to your mama."

The jeers echo in his ears, ricocheting off of Mama's scolding from the hour before and Daddy's shouting from the hour before that.

There just isn't anyone who understands him, not in this little one-horse town.

The laughter sets his ears ringing, and suddenly, he just ain't gonna take it anymore.

The rage rises up outta nowhere and pours out of him, and before he knows it, he's standing over the bodies of all six of the much-older boys and he's barely out of breath.

He stares down at them twitching and moaning, and he looks at his hands, hands that should be throbbing, but are just plain numb, and he stares down at the older boys again.

He's scared, scared of himself, and the only thing that he can think of is,_ "Mama's gonna kill me."_

So he steps on the burning cigarette and hightails it home before he can get yelled at again for being late to dinner.

. . .

The young woman rather nervously enters the room, takes a deep breath, and announces in a braver voice than she feels, "I'm ready."

The man, bent over his box of paints, looks up and smiles. "Over there, my dear," he says, gesturing to the silky fabric laid out on the floor. "Make yourself comfortable."

She nods and makes her way to the square of cloth. She pauses for a moment, turns her back to the man, and slips off the silk robe she is wearing.

The man glances up to watch thoughtfully as she tries out several positions, finally settling on a pose that she thinks he might appreciate.

He smiles. "My dear, let me tell you something. The more the woman hints, rather than shows, the more mysterious she is, the more alluring." He taps the side of his nose. "Trust old Metier."

"Now, ma mystere, turn around and sit just so, yes, and your arm so, yes, yes. Just so."

. . .

Nathan Ford walks away from the seminary, away, to...

To what?

He's not sure, but it sure isn't going to be the streets of Boston, where his father rules. He knows for sure that he isn't going to be like him.

That's why he'd picked the seminary. No one in his neighborhood had gone on to college, but he had. Many people were religious, but not many went on to become priests; they were too poor and had too many mouths to feed to do it. He'd wanted to distance himself from his past, from his father, so he'd gone.

But the seminary hadn't been for him.

So what now?

He'll be damned if he goes back…

He walks around the city aimlessly, slouched down, hands in his pockets. After walking for a couple of hours, he lets out a gusty sigh. He glances up, and…

BOSTON ASSURANCE: Insurance Agency

Insurance, huh?

Why not?

* * *

References:

Parker's brother was killed in a bike accident, according to "The Future Job."

Metier is the artist who painted a very young Sophie. ("The Frame Up Job.")

Boston Assurance is the company where Nate almost gets a job in the second season premiere.


	7. Quarter For Your Thoughts

Summary: Eliot and Parker have a cute squabble. For my E/P people. :)

(This story is in this collection because 25 - 0.25 - quarter[coin])

AN: Wow, so people are actually reading this...That's nice to know. :D Thanks!

* * *

**Quarter For Your Thoughts**

Eliot doesn't jump when a hand darts out and slams something small and metallic onto the tabletop in front of him. (If he wasn't Eliot and thus trained in countless defense techniques, he may very well have, though.)

Only one person in the world can sneak up on him like that.

"Dammit, Parker!"

Parker comes around from behind him, brushing by very close to him as she does so, and lifts her hand from the table, smirking at being able to almost startle Eliot. On the table remains a coin.

"Quarter for your thoughts?" she asks with a Cheshire Cat grin.

Eliot stares at her blankly (although 'blankly' can usually be a synonym for 'angrily' with Eliot). "It's 'a penny,' Parker," he finally says.

Parker squints down at the silver coin on the table. "Nooo," she says slowly, as if to a child, "that's a quarter."

Eliot rubs his face with his hand. "'Penny for your thoughts,' Parker, not quarter."

"Oh," Parker says, and Eliot can almost see her crazy brain processing this information. "I can exchange it, if you want," she says putting her hand on the coin to pick it up.

A bigger, callused hand drops down on top of her whiter, slender hand. "Nah, quarter's fine," Eliot says with a grin of his own.

She returns the smile and puts her other hand on top of his, making an Eliot hand sandwich. "So that means that you have to tell me your thoughts with interest, right?" Her sweet smile turns sneaky.

Eliot tries to tug his hand out from between hers, but even someone who hits people for a living would find it difficult to free his hand from the grip of someone who hangs off of buildings with her bare hands for a living without actually hurting her.

"Parker..." he warns, standing up, but it's merely to cover up the fact that she has won and he doesn't want to admit it yet.

She blinks up innocently at him. "Eliot..." she says back to him in the same tone.

Eliot sighs, defeated. He tries another tactic instead.

He gets close to her, so close that his breath moves the fine strands of her hair. He uses his free hand to cup her cheek in his palm, and...

Parker giggles and scampers away a little ways around the table, still holding his hand captive.

"Nuh-uh," she says, laughing. "Sophie told me about this one, remember?"

Still, he's got one free hand while both of hers are busy keeping his other one under guard, so this time he's got the upper hand, so to speak.

How he uses that hand, well, he can be creative, and she's soon giggling more from being tickled than from mischievousness.

As she laughs, he's yet again struck by how beautiful she is, and so he kisses her because, well, because he can. (And by 'can,' it most definitely means that he's the only one allowed to.) He kisses her, and because he is Eliot and not some other schmuck, he kisses her soundly.

She, of course, responds, and because she is Parker and not some other airy-headed female, she doesn't relinquish her hold on his hand or the quarter, and instead manages to even get her hand into his pocket. (She does this by slipping the hand holding the coin out from under his. This, while still kissing him, of course.)

Feeling her hand in his pocket, he chuckles against her lips, and pulls away enough to say breathlessly, "Ya gonna give me a quarter's worth of thoughts for that, hun?"

She growls at him and pouts, but a clink of metal in his pocket tells him that she has put the coin back where it belongs.

...Or has she? Was that two clinks?

He narrows his eyes at her twinkling hazel eyes, and digs his free hand into his pocket to check.

"Quarter for your thoughts?" Parker laughs at his expression, "That's twenty-five times one penny-thought, Eliot."

He growls and grabs her close again to kiss her. "Ya wanna know what I'm thinking? I'm thinkin' that I love you, Parker. That worth a quarter to ya?" he says.

She makes a happy sound and throws her arms around his neck. "I think I owe you change," she whispers with a content smile.


	8. Leverage 1925

Summary: Snapshots of a _Leverage_ 1925 AU. With a glossary of 1920s slang at the end (from _local aaca dot org_).

Did I have a lot of fun with the 1920s slang? Um, yes. Did I just cram them all in like a fourth grader does vocab words so that I'd end up with 25? Uh...yeah. :D The numbers like this (1) in the text lead to the footnotes at the end of the story. It gets annoying after a while, but that's the only way I could think of to do it. (It might help to open this story in two windows, one to read and the other for the footnotes.)

(This story is in this collection because 25 - year '25 - year 1925)

* * *

**Leverage 1925**

The year is 1925.

"Let's go steal a Sophie."

"What the hell's a Sophie?"

. . .

They find her on a moving picture set in the dusty hills of Hollywood, dressed in a long medieval-looking dress and making large gestures and over-exaggerated expressions at the camera. The cameraman has long since stopped cranking the wheel on the box and is smoking a roll-up cigarette, and the director is shouting at her, "You are the worst Lady Macbeth I have ever set my cheaters(1) on!"

"And how!"(2) agrees Parker, staring with undisguised horror at the spectacle in front of her from her spot at the back of the set.

"Ab-so-lute-ly!"(3) nods Hardison from next to her. He'd gotten in by dressing as a cleaning man, as colored folk ain't allowed in otherwise.

"What are we doing here?" Eliot hisses at Nate. "She is the worst actress I have ever seen, and what with these new moving pictures things they're coming out with, that's saying something."

Nate states simply: "This is not her stage," and walks off.

. . .

"One job only, no encores."

"I already forgot your names."

. . .

"Leverage Consulting and Associates, established 1913?" Eliot raises his eyebrows. "Were you even born in 1913?" he scoffs at Hardison, the one he's come to think of as the cocky colored kid with a good head for numbers and an even better eye for forging, but no idea of the big picture.

_"Excuse you, but I ain't twelve,"_ rises to Hardison's lips, but he doesn't utter the words because his Nana had told him that you gotta be careful what you say to white folk, 'specially white folk who could bump him off(4) in the blink of an eye, and more 'specially the kind of white folk who gots the kind of hard-boiled(5) reputation as a torpedo(6) Eliot Spencer's got. Not that Eliot Spencer strikes Alec as the kind of man who would, y'know, strike him, now that they've worked together a bit. Maybe. Hopefully.

"Taxes is paid up from opening til now, all twelve years," he says instead. "You can trust me on this; taxes is gonna get everyone in trouble some day, you just trust me on this. If they cain't get you on nuttin' else, they's gon' get you on taxes."

"I don't pay taxes," Parker says.

"'S alright, miss," Hardison grins, looking a bit goofy(7), "Alec's got youse taken care of. So far as the government knows, Alice White bin payin' taxes since she started secretaryin' here at good ol' Leverage in 1921."

"Who's Alice White?"

"That's you, miss."

"Oh. Who's Alec?"

"That's me, miss."

Sophie spots the portrait on the wall and gives a small, yet ladylike, snort. "Is that-?"

"The great Harlan Leverage the Third," says Hardison proudly, "founder of this here company, who left it all to his favorite nephew, Nathan Ford, when he passed - that explains the family resemblance, y'see."

"Resemblance..." repeats Sophie, as if mesmerized by the painting, which is actually very well done and does credit to the boy's rising reputation as a forger, then giggles, "Nate's going to kill you."

"It gives me the heebie-jeebies(8)," Eliot grunts, again appreciating the kid's talents without revealing it on his countenance.

"This is what you spent your dough(9) on?" marvels Sophie.

"No, no, this is all Nate," says Hardison, "Set up these offices here, and give the rest to the poor."

"All of it?!"

"All of it," confirms Hardison.

"But why?"

"Reason bein'," Hardison says, "so far as I'm concerned, he's a spifflicated(10) crazy man."

. . .

"Nate," growls Eliot, "Now I ain't no Bluenose(11), but this ossifyin'(12) act's gettin' old. We'll get pinched(13) if you don't get sober. So get clean."

"Or what? You're out?" says Nate, adding another bottle to the others in front of him.

"I quit on my own terms. Ain't nobody forcin' me out, Ford."

. . .

"What do I hafta get all dolled up(14) for, anyway? Why can't you be the flapper(15)? What is a flapper, anyhow?"

"I'm already playing the gold digging(16) moll(17) to Nate's mobster. I can't be two people at once in one place, no matter how good I am," Sophie says, pinning Parker's hair into tight little knobs so the wig will fit over her long blonde hair. "And how do you not know what a flapper is?"

Parker shrugs, and gets scolded by Sophie through a mouthful of hairpins.

"Now make sure you call him 'Daddy'(18), alright, dear?" advises Sophie.

Parker scrunches up her pretty little nose and wonders why Sophie seems to be more excited about this than she is. "But he's not my father."

"He'll appreciate it more than your father ever did, trust me."

"I never called him 'Daddy,' either," Parker replies with a roll of her eyes and a very unladylike snort that implies that what she used to call him was just as...unladylike.

Sophie, of course, reads all that in the snort, and decides to ignore it. Flappers aren't exactly ladies, either, so that's fine. "...Anyway, do not, under any circumstances, stab him with a fork, Parker, like last time."

.

_Flashback_

_A speakeasy(19), dark, with tobacco smoke filling the room, jazz music playing..._

_"Cash or check(20), doll(21)?" says the mark, leaning closer and getting a bit too handsy for Parker's taste._

_"Cash," says Parker quickly, because cash is always good, even in situations like this, right? _

_The man leans in, and - _

_End flashback_

_. _

"But-"

"You really should have said 'check(22),' or better yet, 'Sorry, Mac, the bank's closed(23).' That means 'no.'"

"How was I supposed to know what he meant?" gripes Parker, grimacing as Sophie tugs a bit too hard at a strand of fair hair. "Ow. I like cash."

"Not this kind, you don't," replies Sophie with a knowing air. "It's a metaphor, dahling."

"If the bank's closed, you could just break in," says poor bewildered Parker.

"Now there, you look just like the real McCoy(24)," Sophie says with selective hearing, slipping the wig on over Parker's knobby, pin-curled head, "And just think, you'll have simply lovely pin curls in the morning!"

"This wig itches. And how can you talk with all this paint on your face?"

. . .

"I've got the media," says Moreau.

Nate smiles. "I've got a twenty-four-year-old genius with a newspaper press, a telephone, and a wire tap in the radio. You never stood a chance."

. . .

"Capone? Al Capone? The Big Cheese(25)? An' jest how do you pr'pose we bring him down?"

"Taxes, Hardison. Taxes."*

. . .

* * *

Glossary of 1920s terms from local aaca dot org (with my comments):

(1) cheaters: eyeglasses (never heard of this one!)

(2) And how!: I strongly agree!

(3) Ab-so-lute-ly: Affirmative (still used)

(4) bump off: to murder,to kill (still used)

(5) hard boiled:a tough, strong guy (makes me think of Bogart and Bacall)

(6) torpedo**:** A hired gun (um, okay, this slang thing is getting weird)

(7) goofy: in love (ha, 'kay, that's cute)

(8) heebie-jeebies: the jitters (kind of weird to have Eliot say it, but whatever...just crammin' 'em in!)

(9) dough: money (still used)

(10) spifflicated: drunk (you should check out all the other words for 'drunk' out there...pretty crazy)

(11) Bluenose: An excessively puritanical person, a prude, Creator of "the Blue Nozzle Curse." (never heard of this one)

(12) Ossified: a drunk person (modified to fit story, new to me)

(13) pinched: to arrest (the meaning I know for this word is "to steal," but I guess this works, too)

(14) Dolled up: dressed up (next four still in use with the meanings here, but there's a certain historical context associated with (15) and (17)

(15) flapper: a stylish, brash, hedonistic young woman with short skirts & shorter hair

(16) gold digger: a woman who associates with or marries a man for his wealth

(17) moll: a gangster's girl

(18) daddy: a youngwoman's boyfriend or lover, especially if he's rich

(19) speakeasy: a illicit bar selling bootleg liquor

(20) cash or check: Do you kiss now or later?

(21) doll: an attractive woman

(22) check: kiss me later (to us and to Parker, 'cash' means money, but in '20s slang, it means kiss when used as in (20).)

(23) bank's closed: no kissing or making out

(24) real McCoy: the genuine article

(25) Big Cheese: the most important or influential person; boss. Same as big shot

*Al Capone was finally arrested on tax evasion because nothing else would stick. (For fun: Referenced in "The Beantown Bailout Job.")


	9. Headquarters

Summary: The team's invasion of Nate's apartment.

(This story is in this collection because 25 - 0.25 - quarter[fraction] - head**quarters**)

* * *

**Headquarters**

"You are aware that I actually live here, right? This is _my_ apartment."

The above statement had been delivered with much frustrated exasperation by Nate after he had received not one, not two, but four identical raised eyebrows at his dingy bathrobe and uncombed hair.

Hardison had even added, "Shoulda come to work in my PJs too," to his eyebrow, to which Parker had replied, "Pajama party!"

Sophie had tutted silently in that way women have (though how a tut can actually be silent and still be heard, or rather, _felt_, is beyond him), and Eliot had remained his usual unreadable self, while, of course, telegraphing an angry (always angry, with Eliot) _"The hell you wearin'?"_ at him.

Hence the defensive statement.

"Yeah," Hardison says, "means you ain't got no commute. How fair is that?"

The others nod and hum in various degrees of agreement.

It seems that in this case, like in his tendency to self-medicate, he has no allies against the invading horde of do-good thieves.

Still...

"This is _my_ apartment!"

"We should remodel," Parker says, and the others voice their vehement agreement.


	10. Hindquarters

Summary: Somebody has an owie in an uncomfortable place, and they are very vocal about it.

(This story is in this collection because 25 - 0.25 - quarter[fraction] - hind**quarters. **It's after Chapter 9's "Headquarters" because I thought it would be funny, haha. *rolls eyes at juvenile humor*)

* * *

**Hindquarters**

"Ohhhhhhh, my ass!"

The moans could be heard from outside the very solid bulletproof (but not soundproof, apparently) doors of the Leverage offices.

"My beautiful ass! Agony!"

Nate stifles a laugh as he enters, and Sophie hides a smile.

"He's still at it?" Nate murmurs to Parker, nodding at the prone figure on the couch.

She snorts. "You'd think he broke his legs or something."

Nate looks around and notices the absence of a certain hitter.

"Where's Eliot?"

Parker rolls her eyes. "He left." Short, but eloquent.

Nate nods. He can very well imagine..."To keep from going crazy?"

Parker grins, her scary, crazy grin. "To keep from killing Hardison."

"Same thing."

Parker agrees with a sharp "Ha!"

"Oh, my poor buttocks!" groans Hardison to a sympathetically mm-hmming Sophie on the other side of the room.

"He's a bad patient. I even put the nurse costume on for him like the internet told me to, but all he did was scream and try to run away, and then screamed even more," Parker gripes, frowning. "I'm sure I did it right."

Nate glances around the office and sees the _enormous_ elephant-sized syringe lying with deceptive innocence on a counter and decides that he doesn't want to know.

He settles for: "Yes, I'm sure you did."

"Ohhhhh," Hardison whimpers loudly and clutches his behind - gently. "What I would give to sit without pain!"

"Arhhhh, that's it," Parker growls, and marches over. She stands over Hardison, who suddenly looks apprehensive and sends an _uh-oh _glance at the syringe.

"It's just a bruised coccyx, Hardison!" she exclaims and throws a ring-shaped cushion at his ass. Hard. "Use the donut!"

_"Awwwrrrrrhhhhh!" _


	11. Collection

Summary: Even to this day, Nate still checks his change for those collectible state quarters. Angst warning.

(This story is in this collection because 25 - 0.25 - quarter[fraction] - quarter[coin])

* * *

**Collection **

Even to this day, Nate still checks his change for those collectible state quarters.

From 1999 to 2008, the United States Mint issued quarters that honored each of the fifty states. The coins all had the familiar profile of George Washington that adorns the face of every normal quarter, but the backs had the name of the state and a design that represented the state. The coins were manufactured at two locations, Philadelphia and Denver, designated 'P' and 'D,' respectively, on the fronts of the coins. Each design was in circulation for only a short period of time, and supposedly will never be manufactured again.

They're quite easy to get a hold of, so many amateur coin collectors collect them.

Sam had collected them.

Nate had encouraged him when Sam had announced that he would begin collecting the state quarters. It was a relatively inexpensive hobby, one that might end in profit should Sam complete his collection of all 100 coins.

All the other kids on the block were collecting them, but Nate knew that most of them would likely give up within the first year or two of collecting.

But not Sam Ford.

Being born to two such people as Nathan and Maggie Ford meant that Sam had hated loose ends and unfinished projects, and did his research meticulously before beginning.

Sam would complete his collection, Nate knew.

So he encouraged him. He hadn't given Sam all the state quarters he came across, like many parents would have, but he put them aside and traded him for them - one 'normal' quarter or a hated chore for a state quarter.

When Sam had gotten sick, Nate had tried to keep his spirits up by giving Sam all the state quarters he could, especially the 'P' ones that were less common on the west coast than the east.

Sam had died before the collection was complete.

Still, Nate collects them, sorting through his change for those special quarters.

The others notice his fascination with quarters. They don't all quite get it, but sometimes he comes into the office to find a roll of quarters sitting on his desk with no note attached to tell him who left it there. They're just quarters, not all the special ones, but he finds a few of the ones he is missing that way.

It's a few weeks after the newest, and last, designs come out that he finishes the collection, all 100 coins - 50 states, two minting locations. He pops the last silver coin into the little cardboard holder and smooths his hand over all the coins laid out before him.

"It's finished, Sam," he whispers, "It's done."

He feels a deep sense of sadness - god, how he misses his son - but there's satisfaction, too, that he has finished what Sam started, that his little boy is really at rest now.

When the District of Columbia and U. S. Territories commemorative coins come out, he briefly considers collecting them, but he desists.

It's done. Sam's project is done. The fabric-backed cardboard coin holder sits in its place of honor in Nate's bookshelf on his boat. He doesn't open it again, but he knows it's there.

And surprisingly...surprisingly, it's alright. He's okay with that.


	12. SLF: Silver Anniversary

Summary: Nate and Sophie have been married for 25 years now. "Sticky Little Fingers" 'verse, obviously a way-in-the-future fic.

Thanks to **floralisette **for the idea!

* * *

**Silver Anniversary**

It's been twenty-five years. Twenty-five years since Nate got down on one knee and asked Sophie to marry him. Well, Lara, actually, but it was the woman he knew as Sophie he was asking to spend the rest of his life with him.

"Lara" (she never has gotten around to telling him her _real_ name - she so loves being a tease) is for the bedroom only. To everyone to whom she has been Sophie all these years, Sophie she remains, and as Sophie (or Aunt Sophie, as she is to the "nieces" and "nephews") she is loved.

Twenty-five years of marriage to the sometimes quite insufferable, oftentimes very lovely man who is the father of her only child, Irene.

Irene. She's all grown up now (not that Nate wants to admit it), and she's getting married soon, too (another thing that Nate has been rather pigheaded about), to That Boy.

Alright, alright, his name is Michael, and he's a very lovely young man, whose father has raised him quite well, despite the sometimes confusing and exasperating interference from the Hardison-Parker family (and _alright, alright,_ from the Devereaux-Fords too). Eliot in his turn has given his own two cents about the raising of his friends' children, in a mostly helpful and very close-knit circle of parenting advice (for example, "Tell your kids to keep their fingers outta my damn pockets!").

That's right. Michael is Eliot's boy, and Hardison and Parker have five children of their own, and really, twenty-five years ago - nay, thirty years ago, when they'd first started working together, none of them would ever have imagined this.

Not in a million years.

Back then, Nate had still been wallowing in his guilt about Sam's death and drowning his sorrows in the bottle. He didn't care where he'd be in thirty years, but he _knew_ that he wouldn't be the head of an entire clan of thieves.

Hardison was still just a boy, really, and so he most likely had some glittering dream of where he would be in thirty years, of a huge mansion, a trophy wife who understands geek-speak, and lots of fame - King of the Geeks, probably. And not middle-aged. Most definitely not middle-aged, not even a well-preserved middle-aged, not in that dream.

Children probably hadn't factored into Parker's and Eliot's plans for their respective futures. Parker's schedule for thirty years ahead would most likely have been peppered with meticulously-planned heists (and money _[yes, in-my-head-Parker, money, too]_). And knowing Eliot, he probably thought that, realistically speaking, thirty years ahead, he'd be dead. Perhaps retired, but most likely dead. Not a father, definitely not. Or a mother, in Parker's case.

Sophie had...thoughts about where she'd be, like perhaps Paris, or the Bahamas. Perhaps Italy. And as for what she'd be doing? Well, it certainly didn't include helping Nathan Ford look for his bloody reading glasses that were _there_ just a minute ago!

"Are you _sure _you put them there?" Sophie sighs, straightening up. Her back cracks just a little as she does so.

"Yes, I'm sure!" Nate says testily, raking his hands through his gray hair, standing it all back up on end again.

"Don't shout at me," Sophie replies, putting her hands on her hips. "I'm only helping you look for them!"

"Well, we're not finding them," grumbles Nate, digging into the sofa cushions again.

Sophie merely sighs, expressively.

Nate mutters something about nagging sighs, which Sophie very pointedly ignores as she picks the spilled cushions up off the floor, throwing them onto the sofa, and mutters _words _of her own under her breath.

The front door opens then, and two sets of feet walk into the house.

"Mummy, Daddy, what are you doing?! We're going to be late!" Irene exclaims, giving the room turned topsy-turvy a dramatic sweep with a perfectly manicured hand. "What happened in here?"

Michael comes up from behind her with an expression that's halfway between amused and concerned as Nate and Sophie explode in joint explanations.

_"Your_ mother thinks I'm going senile- "

_"Your_ father- "

" -and of course I _looked- _"

" -_never_ remembers where he puts them- "

" -not blind, you know- "

" -you'd think you were, the way you keep losing things- "

" -the one who lost her purse- "

Irene sighs. "Parents are _so_ embarrassing," she says to her fiance, _sotto voce._

Michael smirks. "Tell me about it. I've got one at home."

"Your dad isn't embarrassing," she sniffs, the unspoken _"like mine are"_ following her words like a line of baby ducklings behind mama duck.

"That's 'cause he's not _your_ dad," Michael says, and shakes his head. "I'm telling you, all parents are embarrassing. Scientific fact."

" -not even _listening!"_ both parents wind down in sync.

"Why do you even need them, anyway? They're reading glasses. You don't need them to drive," Irene says, exasperated, "Michael's driving us, anyway, right, Michael?"

_"He_ says he needs them to read his vows," Sophie says, "I _told_ him that he should have memorized them," and a righteous _"like I did"_ follows mama duck again.

"You're going to be late to your own second wedding!" agonizes Irene.

"We know!"

While the Ford family scene reaches its most dramatic point, Michael wanders over to one wall, hands in his suit pockets, and cocks his head slightly to the side. Seemingly satisfied, he wanders back again, and pulls his phone out.

When the Fords stop arguing to watch him, he gestures at them, _"keep going,"_ and dials a number, glancing meaningfully up at the ceiling as he does so.

_"Take my love, take my land, take me where I cannot stand..."_

"Dammit, Gil!" shriek four of the Hardison-Parker children at the remaining fifth member. The shout echoes throughout the metal vents of the Leverage-owned apartment complex where all the original members of the team and their younger children live.

"I thought I put it on silent," says poor Gil, the youngest of them all (by only 25 minutes; his twin sister Flo had been born first).

As they all climb out of the air vent in single file, looking various degrees of sheepish and embarrassed (but only that they were caught, not that they'd done something wrong), Michael stands over them with his arms crossed. He holds his hand out.

The glasses magically appear in it, by way of Ruby's hand.

He walks along the line of thief-hacker spawn, looking them each in the eye, pivots, then walks it again, like a drill sergeant.

He stops suddenly in front of Flo. "Giggler," he accuses, and reaches out to tweak her nose playfully. "I heard you up there."

Flo's siblings crane their necks to glare at her.

"Oops," she says, shrinking back with another giggle.

"No 'oops' on a real con," Michael scolds, but gently - he has a soft spot for the twins. "That goes for you, too, Gil." He ruffles the boy's hair.

"And as for you three," Irene steps in and says to the older three sternly, "You ought to know better."

Carrie, Frankie, and Ruby look chagrined, but only because Nate and Sophie are in the room.

"Now get cleaned up and meet at the church in half an hour," Irene finishes and shoos the whole brood out of the apartment. "Not one minute late," she says, "and drive safely."

Michael snorts at that, a _"ha, ya hypocrite"_ kind of snort. Irene glares at him for that, as the sounds of sibling squabbling over who gets to drive drift upwards towards the top floor, where Hardison and Parker and their kids (the ones who still live at home, anyway) live.

Irene pinches the bridge of her nose delicately. "It's too early for this," she moans.

"I'll buy you coffee on the way," Michael says in a placating tone of voice, as he hands Nate the glasses he had reclaimed from Ruby (and Co.). "Here you are, sir."

Nate grunts his thanks at him, tensions still being rather high between the two of them over Irene.

"Thank you, Michael," Sophie says, _"Now_ are we ready to go?"

. . . . .

A short while later finds them all gathered in the church, with Nate and Sophie standing at the altar, renewing their vows.

It's not like a traditional wedding; they had already done that twenty-five years ago. This time, there is no bride's side and groom's side; they are all on the same side now. It's a small affair, and the participants and guests are simply dressed. There is no full-length white dress in sight; Sophie wears a simple navy dress that is both conservative and attractive. Nate wears a black suit instead of the tuxedo he had worn a quarter of a century before, and his hair has been combed neatly into place by his scolding daughter from the unruly mess he had made of it while looking for his glasses.

The guests include, of course, Eliot, and Parker and Hardison and their five children, but also Tara and Maggie. The latter of the two is seated next to Eliot with her hand in his; after years of friendship, flirting, and obvious attraction, they have finally settled down into a...relationship. Though a wedding seems to be nowhere on the horizon for them, they have a comfortable friendship that is closer than just friendship and promises to last for the rest of their lives. Theirs is not a hot affair, with a passion that blows over too quickly, but a slow, steady affection that is somehow deeper than the affairs they have both had in the past.

Tara is still in the game, and her appearance reflects this; still svelte in a sleek silver-gray pantsuit, with her graying blond hair swept back in a low bun. She has a husband of her own, who is a conman and grifter himself. Together, in the field, they are a formidable team. But here and now, they are just simply Tara and Roger (occasionally Joe or Maximilian or Rodrigo), friends of the family.

Nate's longtime friend Father Paul officiates at the ceremony. He expresses his joy that his friend has found true happiness with Sophie, and his belief that the couple will have many more happy years together.

Michael looks around at everyone from his seat next to Irene. What a family, huh? He shakes his head at how Parker and Hardison have long since given up trying to keep their overexcited children (not that Carrie and Frankie, at 22 and 20, respectively, are young enough to be called "children" anymore) in their seats. It's not like anyone in the family minds, being used to them by now. In fact, Michael notes that their mother Parker herself seems a bit antsy at having to sit still when what she really wants is to test out the high ceiling of the church.

Turning his wandering attention back to the ceremony, he leans over and whispers into Irene's ear, "Think we'll be like them when we're married that long?" nodding at her parents, who are still standing at the front of the church with their hands clasped together.

"God, I hope not."

Michael chuckles and moves in closer for a kiss.

"We're in a church," Irene warns primly.

"Hm?" Michael replies, still very close to her face.

"My dad's looking," she says this time.

Michael straightens, shoots her a look that says, _"low shot,"_ and gives the glaring Nate an innocent smile. When Nate returns his attention to his wife, however, Michael leans back in, and –

"Michael and Irene, sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!"

Damn them all! How old do they think they are?

"Will you stop that?" he hisses at the giggling ousters over his shoulder, "We're in a church here!"

Grumbling under his breath about immature kids, he turns back to the ceremony (and the livid Nate) with a scowl that lifts when Irene gives him a chaste kiss and says, "Hush, you, and behave."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And lose the snark."

"Yes, dear."

Irene huffs at him, making him smile. He puts his arm around her and settles for leaning his cheek against the top of her head.

"I love you," he tells her, as Nate and Sophie (finally) finish renewing their vows.

"I love you, too."

. . . . .

* * *

References:

"Tell your kids to keep their fingers outta my damn pockets!": This particular piece of "parenting advice" may be found in my fic "Sticky Little Fingers," which started this whole 'verse. Self-reference, y'all!

_"Take my love, take my land, take me where I cannot stand..."_: Cookies if you know this...

"Michael and Irene, sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!": Courtesy of Ultrawoman in her fic "Teenage Kicks," written in my "Sticky Little Fingers" 'verse.


	13. Atomic Number

Summary: The Leverage team takes on a case of manganese poisoning.

The element with the atomic number 25 is manganese.

Medical disclaimer: Manganese poisoning is real, but all I know about it comes from Wiki.

* * *

**Atomic Number**

"Manganese can often be found in welding supplies. Chronic manganese poisoning, or manganism," says Hardison, presenting the 'thing' with the 'other thingy,' as Parker likes to put it, "results in symptoms including mood changes, tremors, compulsive behavior, and reduced response speed. Lotsa lawsuits over this, an' not many end in payouts."

He clicks the 'other thingy-thing.' "Our client, or actually, the client's husband, Joe Tundy, is a steelworker, and was exposed to a helluvalot of manganese without even knowin' it."

. . . . .

Mr. and Mrs. Tundy hold hands nervously as they sit at the table across from Nate and Eliot.

He's a big guy, in worn-out jeans and flannel, with a weathered-looking face and hands.

She cuts a motherly figure, with graying hair tucked neatly into a low bun.

"It's not the shakin', or even feelin' slow," Joe Tundy says, gripping his wife's hand tight with a trembling hand. "I ain't young, gotta slow down sooner or later. It's these mood changes." A flash of anger lights up the pale gray eyes with uncharacteristic fire. "It ain't me."

"Joe's the most even-tempered man I ever knew," Lee Ann Tundy says with a small smile, "He always says that life's too short to be feelin' miserable. But now," she looks at her husband sorrowfully, "he can be just plain irritable. That's when we knew something was real wrong. It just ain't like him."

"It just ain't me," Joe repeats, "I don't want my grandkids to remember me as bein' a crotchety ol' cuss. That ain't me. An' it sure ain't any of the other guys in my shoes from the factory who got this damn manganese in their blood now. Messes up the liver, an' the brain, an' all sorts of medical things. It's hell to pay the medical bills, but more than that, it's our grandkids not remembering me the way I used to be, the way I can't honestly tell 'em anymore that losin' yer temper ain't the way to solve things."

Eliot holds the steelworker's gaze steadily, then glances at Nate, who nods.

"We can help. We'll help for your grandkids."

. . . . .

_What do you mean, it's in the steel? It's in just plain ol' paint, too,_ the company claims, _Hell, it's in the drinking water! Who knows where you picked it up!_

_And who put the manganese in the drinking water?_ asks Sophie, in her alias as Dr. Ellie Sattler, environmental activist.

_Well,_ the company hems and haws, and tries to slide right out from underneath them, but the Leverage team grabs onto them and holds on with all their might.

_Would you like some manganese with your coffee?_ Dr. Sattler asks sweetly. _How about in your house paint?_

_Hey, smell this!_ says Agent Hagen, shoving the mangled evidence of the covered-up paper trail that Agent Thomas had dredged up under the company's metaphorical nose.

_How do you like that tremor in your hands,_ Eliot, the new welder, says, pulling the ol' nicotine on the wristwatch trick again.

_Erratic behavhior? Forgetvhulness? Ah, ja, ve know vhat zat means, ja?_ says the CEO's new personal physician, wagging a finger at his terrified patient. _You haff been poizhoned!_

. . . . .

"Thank you, Mr. Ford," Lee Ann Tundy says a few weeks later, sitting on her front porch sipping lemonade with Nate. She has tears in her eyes as she looks over at her husband, who has a little pigtailed girl in his lap. "His doctors say he's responding to treatments pretty good. Symptoms won't be completely gone, but he'll get better."

"Is he going to retire now?" Nate asks, chuckling as a team of pre-teenaged boys tackle Eliot to the ground in a game of football on the Tundys' lawn. "You've got enough money to do it now."

Lee Ann smiles. "Joe loves his work. He really does, even after all this. He says he'll retire when he's good and ready, and now ain't it."

Nate takes a sip of his lemonade. "Good for him."

* * *

AN: Yeah! Hit 100 reviews! Thank you all for your support!


	14. Sale

Summary: Sophie and shopping. When there's a 25% off sale...RUN.

* * *

**Sale**

Sophie loves shopping. She really does. Loves it like breathing. Loves it like stealing.

Loves it.

Period.

Present her with a 25% off sign and...

Oh. Dear. God. SavemeJayzus.

Eliot, Hardison, and Parker have only one piece of advice for you at this point:

RUN!

Run away.

Fast.

Use the window if no other exits are available.

Use the fire exit, use the roof.

Hell, blow a hole through the wall!

But under no circumstances get caught into _going shopping with Sophie_.

"What's wrong with going shopping with Sophie?" Nate asks, "It's just like with any other woman, except she just buys more expensive things."

The three others stare. They stare at him with the expressions of those who see a man who's been too well-trained - dare they say it? Domesticated. _Natefordus domestica - _and their looks carry all the pity and horror reserved for a man who has been married once and may be getting caught in the nets of matrimony (including the horrifying task of _going shopping together) _again.

"What?"

_Poor, poor Nate_, say three pairs of singleton eyes, _poor, domesticated Nate._

"Nate," calls Sophie from the front door, "Nate, there's a sale at Chanel today only! Early Bird Special! A whole 75% off!" she squeals. "That's only 25% of the original price!"

"Uh," says Nate.

_Whoosh!_ go the hitter, hacker, and thief. An air vent shuts quietly, the fire escape clanks back into place, and...the hacker who is stuck in the window by a tangled-up earphone wire yells down at the disappearing hitter, "Aw, come on, Eliot, help a brudda out!"

"...What?..." says Sophie in astonishment.

"Uh," says Nate again. "About shopping, Soph..."

"Yes?"

Nate gives it another try. "About shopping, um..."

_"Yes?"_

"Uh..." Nate gulps at the narrow-eyed look on the grifter's face. "I'll go get the car, shall I?"

The grifter's expression softens. "Yes, you be a dear and do that. Thank you!" She gives him a light pat on the shoulder.

Nate gets out the door and shudders.

_Natefordus domestica_ indeed.

* * *

. . . . .

AN: That shopping with Sophie is a terrible ordeal for the accompanying individual is headcanon for me. See my story "The House Rules" Chapter 3 (part of my "McDonald Boys" series) for more details. (Personal note: I actually enjoy shopping. Thrift store shopping is awesome because I can get a bunch of gently used items [even sometimes new with the original price tag!] for the price of one regular-store item.)

Edit: I thought I'd better change that sale Sophie mentions to something related to 25% for obvious reasons. :P


	15. 25 Random Things

Summary: Parker doesn't get Facebook, emoticons, or tagging. Poor Hardison.

AN: Regarding the title/theme of Chapter 14, please note that "sale" has the alternate meaning of "he/she leaves" in Spanish. ;D Just a bonus!

AN2: The below Facebook thing is real.

* * *

**25 Random Things**

. . . . .

**Hoban Washburne** updated his status and tagged **Alice White **and **25 other people**:

. . . . .

**Alice White** sent **Hoban Washburne** a message:

hardison this is hardison right? im **Alice White** but im really parker. shh. hardison, why did you tag me? are we playing laser tag? i like laser tag.

**.**

**Hoban Washburne** sent **Alice White** a message:

*facepalm* no laser tag. its the 25 random things thing. here go take a look at this **link.** it should expln evrythng. :)

**.**

**Link:**

"Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about yourself. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you."

**.**

**Alice White** sent **Hoban Washburne** a message:

why?

**.**

**Hoban Washburne** sent **Alice White** a message:

just try it. its fun! :)

**.**

**Alice White** sent **Hoban Washburne** a message:

is this from the cia? interpol? and whats the colon-close-parenthesis thing?

**.**

**Hoban Washburne** sent **Alice White** a message:

no its a game. :)? HAPPY FACE, YALL! ITS AN EMOTICON!

**.**

**Alice White** sent **Hoban Washburne** a message:

game? i don't see the happy face. i see a broken D. sorta

**.**

**Hoban Washburne** sent **Alice White** a message:

huh?

oh look at it sideways

**.**

**Alice White** sent **Hoban Washburne** a message:

rainbow on wheels?

**.**

**Hoban Washburne** sent **Alice White** a message:

*headdesk* *facepalm* other way

**.**

**Alice White** sent **Hoban Washburne** a message:

oh. did you hurt your face when you hit your head on your desk? is that why youre covering your face with your hand?

**.**

**Hoban Washburne** sent **Alice White** a message:

no...nvr mind. just do the game. its fun!

**.**

**Alice White** sent **Hoban Washburne** a message:

6:)-|-==8 | - - - [ + ] - - - [ + ] - - - [ + ] - - - [ + ] - - - [ + ] - - - [ + ] - - |

**.**

**Hoban Washburne** sent **Alice White** a message:

da hell zat?

**.**

**Alice White** sent **Hoban Washburne** a message:

happy ponytail parker jumping off the roof of a 6-story building

ill do the random game later

**.**

**Hoban Washburne** sent **Alice White** a message:

ok :)

. . . . .

**Alice White** updated her status and tagged **Hoban Washburne **and **25 other people**:

1. i like money

2. money is awesome

3. im human (at least thats what it says in my social services file)

4. tall buildings are cool

5. i like jumping off of them

6. mm doritos

7. and cheetos

10. and pickles

11. and candy

12. eliot im hungry

13. i like eliots food

14. cool, **Alice White** likes the same stuff that i do! :) :) :)

15. money is nice so is jewelry

16. i like bunnies

20. and tarantulas

25. Done!

**.**

**Hoban Washburne** commented on **Alice White's **status:

-_-" **Alice White** jus no. no.

**.**

**Archibald Goodwin** commented on **Alice White's **status:

What is this? **Hoban Washburne**, care to explain?

**Alice White** Why are you missing numbers 8, 9, 17-19, and 21-24?

**.**

**Hoban Washburne** commented on **Alice White's **status:

**Archibald Goodwin** jus a fb thing dat she mangled **Link**

**.**

**Alice White** commented on her status:

cause 7 ate 9! HAHAHA nate. and then i got hungry. and sleepy. and hungry

**.**

**Peggy Milbank** commented on **Alice White's** status:

is this the 25 random things list? I did one a while back, but some things have changed since then so maybe I'll do a new one! i'll tag u! I like chips, too! *shh, secret* ;)

**.**

**Peggy Milbank** liked **Alice White's** status.

**.**

**Peggy Milbank **updated her status and tagged **Alice White **and **25 other people.**

**.**

**Peggy Milbank** commented on **Alice White's** status:

Did mine!

**.**

**Lone Wolf** commented on **Alice White's** status.

what the hell is this? and honey, you know that it ain't good to eat that much junk food.

**.**

**Patricia Holm** likes **Alice White's** status.

**.**

**Patricia Holm **commented on **Alice White's** status:

Jewels are nice, I agree. The way they just...shine from within.

**.**

**Maggie (Margaret) Collins** likes **Alice White's** status.

**.**

**Maggie (Margaret) Collins** commented on **Alice White's** status:

This is interesting! I learned some new things about you, **Alice.**

Did you know that **Archibald Goodwin** hates tarantulas? Odd little quirk, isn't it?

**.**

**Archibald Goodwin **commented on **Alice White's** status:

**Maggie!**

**.**

**Maggie (Margaret) Collins** commented on **Alice White's** status:

O:)

**.**

**Alice White **commented on her status:

rainbow on wheels balancing on a ball?

**.**

**Maggie (Margaret) Collins** commented on **Alice White's** status:

What?

**.**

**Hoban Washburne** commented on **Alice White's **status:

angel **Alice** angel! thts d emoticon 4 angel

**.**

**James Whittaker Wright III** commented on **Alice White's** status:

That's nice, my dear. You always did like heights. Rather exhilarating and refreshing, I always thought.

**.**

**Hoban Washburne** commented on **Alice White's **status:

u kno evry1 who wuz tagged sppsd 2 do der own list?

**.**

y did evry1 jus untag demselvs?

**.**

**Peggy Milbank** commented on **Alice White's** status:

I didn't. I like learning more about my friends. :)

**.**

**Hoban Washburne** liked **Peggy Milbank's** comment.

**.**

**Hoban Washburne** commented on **Alice White's **status:

dere dats moar like it

**.**

**Archibald Goodwin** commented on **Alice White's **status:

**Hoban Washburne** your spelling is atrocious.

**.**

**Hoban Washburne** commented on **Alice White's **status:

it's internet language, aiight?!

**.**

**Lone Wolf** commented on **Alice White's **status:

alright

**.**

**Hoban Washburne** commented on **Alice White's **status:

y every1 pickin on me?

**.**

**Alice White **commented on her status:

i dont get this game. im gonna go steal something. archie wanna come?

**.**

**James Whittaker Wright III** commented on **Alice White's** status:

Not today, kiddo. Rheumatism acting up.

**.**

**Hoban Washburne** commented on **Alice White's **status:

u do realize dis da internet? ppl can c u writin about stealing things?

whaevr cuz hardisons gonna clean it all up rite? cuz dats wut hardison do

no1 appreciate wut hardison do

an no1 even readin dis

its ok tho cuz im gonna delete dis whole thing anyway

**.**

**Alice White **commented on her status:

why? it was fun!

**.**

**Hoban Washburne** commented on **Alice White's **status:

*foreheadkeyboard* jafl;eaivl;n

. . . . .

* * *

AN: So was that fun? Or confusing? O_O Yes, I know that Facebook automatically turns ":)" into a real happy face and so on, but I thought that this would be more fun.

**Alias meanings/identities:**

Alice White: established alias for Parker

Hoban Washburne: From the character (Wash) from _Firefly._ 'Cause Hardison so would.

Archibald Goodwin: Archie Goodwin, from Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe mysteries. Tim Hutton played this character on the TV series. Nate would be a fan.

Lone Wolf: duh.

Patricia Holm: Sophie. The girlfriend of debonair thief Simon Templar in Leslie Charteris' _The Saint_ books.

James Whittaker Wright III: Archie Leach, aka Richard Chamberlain, who played this character on _Hustle._


	16. 25 Words

Summary: Six drabbles of 25 words each.

AN: You know how hard it is to write a fic a day for almost a month? So this is me playing catch-up. I was going to post one a day at regular intervals, but I'm a masochist, so here they are all at once.

* * *

**25 words**

.

**25 words on Nate**

Alcoholic...no, _functioning _alcoholic.

Insurance agent...no, criminal mastermind.

Father...no, _was_, still is.

Friend...sometimes.

Honest man...no, _was_, is?

Now, help the helpless.

.

**25 words on Sophie**

Lady Charlotte Prentiss.

Annie Kroy.

Katherine Clive.

...Lara...

So many names, so many identities...which one is really her?

Sophie.

Loved as Sophie, is Sophie.

.

**25 words on Eliot**

Speak softly with fist, knee, foot.

Keep rage in, let it out.

Gentle to friend, deadly to foe.

Motion, always, even when still-

Stop.

Go...

.

**25 words on Parker**

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.

Humpty Dumpty loved to fall.

Broken pieces ground up fine.

Glittering, glimmering,

Piece together whole.

Unshattered, facets brightly shine.

.

**25 words on Hardison**

Body a conduit.

Quick fingers, quicker brain, processor brain.

Nerves wires, fingers never fast enough.

Update, upgrade-sometimes forgets, needs people.

People who care.

Family.

.

**25 words on the Leverage team**

Wherever there are oppressed, there are people who help, who fight.

There is always someone to help-someone who needs help, someone to give help.


	17. Acute

Summary: Parker, on the nature of acute angles (and not obtuse angels).

AN: Okay, so the reasoning behind this one is that a 25-degree angle is an acute angle, and it kind of just went off-base from there. Another one of those rambly-weird kind of stories disguised as Parker-thoughts. This is what happens when poesie is desperate. :P

* * *

**Acute**

An acute angle measures less than 90 degrees.

An obtuse angle measures more than 90 degrees.

Supplementary angles are two angles with measurements that add up to 180 degrees.

Therefore, unless the two angles are both 90 degrees, one angle in a supplementary pair is always acute and the other is always obtuse.

. . . . .

It's a way of balancing things out, Parker thinks.

For everything you're acute about, there's something you're obtuse about.

"Acute" here, meaning "sharp" - you know a lot about something.

"Obtuse" is the opposite - you're kind of a dummyhead about something.

Parker got the idea from a story she read over Hardison's shoulder about an obtuse angle and two brothers in a vintage car*.

So you can know something really, really well, but there's always this other thing that you don't know anything about, just to balance it all out.

She's really good at stealing things, but she totally sucks at the social people thing.

She can do calculus in her head; on the other hand, she doesn't know anything about history, except the history of the thing she's going to steal (more or less) and the history of the security of the building it's in.

She can pick a lock _so_ fast, but unlocking the mysteries of fiction books is beyond her. Why should she care about people who aren't even real? Real people are enough trouble as it is, without having to try to figure out why the chick wants the sparkly guy to bite her, anyway. He should just go ahead and eat her if that's what she wants him to do, if he's that hungry. Then there would be one less annoying person in the world.**

It's not just her. It's everyone.

Like Hardison. He's a computer genius, but he doesn't know anything about rappelling except for the gravity part. And he can talk a lot about all kinds of things, but sometimes he doesn't know that being quiet can be nice, too.

Eliot can fight really well, but the computer stuff makes him hesitate. (Well...even Parker can tell that he fakes not knowing about computers to irritate Hardison sometimes. It _is_ funny.) He can cook, but he told Parker once that he can't crochet***.

Nate's good at thinking about the big picture, but he's not that good at really listening to people (says Sophie).

Sophie is really good at being other people, but she gets kind of lost when she's trying to be herself.

It's all a balance.

You can't have a person who's all acute angles (really good at _everything_) because they'd just be a jerk, although that automatically counts as an obtuse for being bad at being not-jerk-like. And you can't have a person who's all obtuse angles (really bad at everything) because he'd just die from being bad at living and breathing and stuff.

Parker tries to explain it to the others, but Sophie just pretends to understand, Hardison thinks she's talking about geometry, Nate gets all glassy-eyed listening to her, and Eliot growls and says, "But I can knit! And I knocked someone out using a crochet hook before, so that counts halfway."****

She figures that it's another obtuse for her, that she's bad at explaining herself. But the supplementary acute part of the angle is that she's good at being Parker, and that's okay with her because the team still likes her even when she's at her Parkerest.

. . . . .

* * *

**Footnotes (sorry if it's annoying, Sci F.I. Warper!):**

*"obtuse angle and two brothers in a vintage car": inside joke for _Supernatural _fanfiction readers. "Angel" is often spelled "angle," much to my annoyance. "I am an angle of the Lord!" Um, what? Shall we measure you with a holy protractor, then? Castiel, the _angel_ who utters this particular line in the show, is a bit socially awkward, hence the "obtuse." So "obtuse angle." "Two brothers" refers to the Winchester brothers. :)

**_Twilight_. My sentiments exactly, Parker.

***Truth, according to (I think) Rogers - can't for the life of me find where I read it, though.

****Okay, if you say so, Eliot.


	18. Parker and the Tooth Fairy

Summary: What the title says. Wee!Parker cuteness.

AN: This is crack fic. I started writing without a plan and this is what happened.

Quarter = 25 cents

* * *

**Parker and the Tooth Fairy**

Once upon a time, there was a little girl. She believed in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. She also believed in leprechauns, unicorns, and the Loch Ness Monster.

One day, the little girl lost a tooth. Like a good little girl, she showed everyone at the orphanage the bloody little pebble of ivory and went to bed early.

Before she put her little golden head on her flat little pillow, she picked the pillow up and carefully deposited the tooth on top of the thin yellowed sheet. She replaced the pillow with a pat and got into the bed and went to sleep...

...as far as anyone could tell, anyway. Not that anyone looked too closely because who cared about whether one little girl in a whole orphanage of children was asleep.

A couple of hours later, at midnight, the witching hour, there was a disturbance at the window.

"Bars," someone could be heard to mutter from outside the window, "iron bars. I hate iron bars."

There was a popping noise, and a plump little figure _squeezed _into the room. She smoothed down her sparkly sequined dress, fluttered her tiny little wings, put a pair of rhinestone-studded spectacles on (green, with little wings on the side), and pulled out a list. It unrolled and fell down to her feet and rolled a little bit further.

"Now let's see," she murmured thoughtfully, "Parker-just-Parker. Second bed on the east side of the room. Left central incisor." She walked slowly to the bed on her list and looked down at the sleeping little girl.

"A bit homely," she tutted, "too skinny. Ah well," she sighed as she stuck her hand under the pillow with a magical _swoosh_ and pulled the tooth out. "Mmhm," she said approvingly, "left central incisor it is!"

She pulled a shiny quarter from the little pouch on her belt. "One quarter for Parker-just-Parker, in exchange for one tooth, left central incisor."

There was another _swoosh_ as she stuck her hand back under the pillow and pulled it back out, empty this time.

"There you are, all finished," she said with an air of a job well-done, "Only twenty-five more to go tonight!"

As soon as the matronly Tooth Fairy _popped_ back through the iron bars of the window, the little girl sat up and threw her pillow aside.

There lay a shiny new quarter.

The girl grinned a gap-toothed smile and put the coin into the sequined pouch in her other hand with a _clink_.

. . . . .

Twenty-five miles away, the Tooth Fairy pulled a tooth out from under another little sleeping head, examined it with a connoisseur's eye, and put her hand to her waist for her pouch.

Her dismayed shriek woke the child whose room it was.

He stared at her as if Christmas had come early. "You'we da Toof Fewwy! Gimme my quwada!"


	19. Hold

Summary: A story about Eliot and Parker written in 25 minutes. The prompt was the 25th song on my shuffle list, "Hold on You" from _Crazy Heart._

AN: The prompt for this chapter was the 25th song on my shuffle list, which was "Hold on You" from _Crazy Heart_. I gave myself 25 minutes to see how much I could write in that time. This story is unedited because it reflects what I did in those 25 minutes. Not my best, but well. Like I said, unplanned and unedited, so considering that, maybe not that bad? *hides under rock*

* * *

**Hold**

He's had a full life. He can't, won't deny that.

He's loved, and been loved. He's traveled, seen the world.

He's done things, good things, bad things, and worse things.

He's seen the man he is inside, and he's seen his real insides, too, has had to hold them in with a dirty bandage more than once.

He's come face to face with himself, and he's ashamed to say it, but he flinched.

But…

Now…

Now, he can face himself. He can look in that mirror and doesn't have to look away. He can stare himself in the eyes and not hate what he sees. He might even like it.

_She _certainly likes it.

Whatever she sees in him, she likes it.

He wasn't so sure about it at first; she'd been skittish, like a cat around a bunch of strangers who might have a nice treat for her, but might also have a boot to throw at her, might have a cage.

She's crazy.

That's what he'd thought about her at first. Pretty, actually, damn hot, probably real flexible, but crazy.

But…

There was something about her. He just couldn't stop thinking about her. Mostly, of course, it was about how crazy she drove him with her own craziness, like an infection, an infection of insanity. But somehow, god knows how, he'd started to think of her as…more.

More.

Understatement.

The way he'd just go with her, shadow her, without her even asking, taking all the hits for her and hiding all the bruises so she wouldn't feel bad if she saw them – she never saw them because he never let her. Well, there were a few that he let her see, just so she and the others wouldn't get suspicious. He'd let her poke them, too. But the bruises he got for her, no, she wouldn't see them.

He'd cook for her, whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. Anything she asked, he had no power to refuse.

It was like she was this beautiful golden…angel for him, flying free off of rooftops, golden hair streaming behind her.

He knew it wasn't good for him. Hardison had first dibs on her, so to speak. Kid had had a baby crush on her from the first time he'd set eyes on her, and things hadn't changed a bit after they'd started working together.

So Eliot started avoiding them, avoiding _her_, avoiding _him. _

Sophie smiled knowingly, sadly. Nate just watched. Hardison complained about how Eliot never had time for a brutha anymore – Eliot didn't have the heart to explain why.

And Parker.

She just took to staring at him, as it he'd just disappear if she looked away or even blinked. He'd caught her in his air vents more than once, and she hadn't explained why, just whisked away like she'd never been there.

That had been difficult. They'd been so close, but they couldn't have been farther apart.

When the team had to split up again to get the feds off of their backs, Eliot went…deep.

Deep into the opium gang wars of China, deep into the rainforests of Peru.

Maybe, he'd thought, maybe if he fought hard enough, went in deep enough, he'd forget her. Forget how he felt about her.

But rather than forget, he remembered. He dreamed about her when he closed his eyes. He saw her in the shadows when he was awake. When he heard the leaves rustle above him, for a moment, he was always sure that it was her.

He should've known.

She'd trailed him, shadowed him. Just like he'd followed her when she went off on jobs that he thought might be too dangerous, she'd followed him, protected him from the shadows

**End 25 minutes…**

**But since these are my stories, my rules, I'm just gonna finish this one. I won't edit it, though, 'cause that's cheating. :P This one's as is, folks. (Hence the tense inconsistencies, underdeveloped character actions/emotions, and probably a few typos.)**

**So, to pick off where I left off…**

She'd trailed him, shadowed him. Just like he'd followed her when she went off on jobs that he thought might be too dangerous, she'd followed him, protected him from the shadows, like a panther, black as night, wild and dangerous, like him.

He'd growled at her in his surprise, and she'd snarked back at him in her own crazy slightly _off_ way, and somehow or another, they'd ended up in bed together in a ramshackle little hut in the middle of the rainforest, hot and sticky, and confused as hell about how they'd actually gotten there, but…happy, too. As if they'd arrived at where they were meant to be all along.

When the team met up again, things were different. They never told anyone anything, just acted like themselves, but the others knew. They knew their hitter and thief like they knew themselves, and so they knew.

Even Hardison.

Things were a little tense, like Eliot had known they would be, but in the end, when the hacker caught sight of the look in Parker's eyes, the look that said that she finally didn't feel _broken_ anymore, well. Well, that did it. If his girl Parker was happy, then so be it. But just so Eliot knows, if he hurt Parker in any way, well. Well…just don't aiight?

Now it's been a while since they first got together in that dark, humid rainforest, and they've had their ups and downs, but at the end of a long day, all they want is to curl up next to each other and just…hold.

And then after that, of course, there's, you know, other stuff…

. . . . .

* * *

AN: Okay, this one isn't one of my favorites, but oh well. It was an interesting experiment. And yes, I know, I know, it's P/E, and most of you are P/H. But hey, I like P/E! Gotta mix it up, right? So awful? Not that bad?

Sorry I haven't been replying to reviews. The Big Red Dot hit, and I'm totally drained. -_-" I will get to them soon, but for now, a collective thank you to everyone who's been reading!


	20. Kimi: Kimiko Marie and the 25 Barbies

Summary: Eliot's daughter Kimi puts her dolls away in weird places, thanks to her "uncles" and "aunts." Kimi 'verse (but may stand alone)

Thanks to **Daisyangel **for the idea!

Story Notes: Kimiko Marie is a character who appears in several chapters (mini-fics marked "K") in my collection "Twenty Three Chromosomes" and in my separate fic "Baby Blues." She is Eliot's four-year-old daughter. Her late mother was a Japanese ballerina. The Kimi series is a _Leverage_ crossover with (get ready for this, ha) _Angel_ and _Close to Home,_ and features Eliot's twin brother Lindsey (with a past as Jack Chase from _Close to Home_ with a twist *spoilers* in that his wife Annabeth and baby daughter died instead of him) as part of the Leverage team after Eliot retires to take care of Kimi. Got that? Moving on. Kimi's still learning how to speak English, so that's why her speech is a little off and is peppered with foreign words.

* * *

**Kimiko Marie and the 25 Barbies**

"Kimi, pick up your toys and come help me make dinner," Eliot calls to his four-year-old daughter, Kimiko Marie, from the kitchen to the living room, where she has been playing.

"Okay, Papa," she calls back.

So far so good.

Kimi has been naughty of late, at least naughtier than her usual mischievous self. Eliot blames her change in behavior on her mother's death several months previously, the move from her home in Japan to America, and most of all, Kimi's newfound "un-cos" and "an-tees" giving her ideas.

Kimi patters into the kitchen on pink-socked feet, and smiles up at him. The dimples that "An-tee Sofeee" coos over whenever she sees the little girl wink into view. "Okay, Papa, _kita yo!" _she announces.

"Did you put everything away?"

"Yes, Papa." Black curls bounce as Kimi shakes her head vigorously to show her father that yes, she has done what she had been told.

"Neatly?" he stresses.

It is here that his ex-lawyer brother, Kimi's beloved "Un-co Lin-Lin," would have found cause to either scold him or laugh at him over not realizing that there are _other _loopholes around his directives. But Lindsey is not here at this time, so Eliot continues happily in his obliviousness, "Did you put all your toys away neatly?"

Here, had he been Lindsey, and had been so inclined to press further, he might have specified _where_. But alas, Eliot's area of expertise is more in actions than words, and so he does not.

"Yes, Papa. Wash hand, help you now?" Kimi asks earnestly. She loves cooking with him, just as much as he loves cooking with her, so they continue happily until...

. . . . .

"What the- Why- Kimi, why is one of your dolls in the freezer?" He holds the hypothermic Barbie doll in his hand and turns it over, still wondering..._What?_

"Hiding," Kimi replies. She's smart enough to know that yes, she is probably in trouble now that it has been discovered that she has put one of her toys away where it does not belong. But yes, neatly, always neatly, Papa. Just like she's supposed to.

From the ice-cold temperature of the plastic doll, it seems to have been in the freezer for more than the ten minutes that have passed since Kimi came into the kitchen.

"Who's it hiding from?" Eliot asks, puzzled.

"Baba!" Kimi exclaims.

Eliot frowns. Sometimes dealing with Kimi is a lot like dealing with Parker. Or dealing with Parker is like dealing with a four-year-old.

"Who's Baba?"

Kimi starts explaining to him about how the man named Baba met forty thieves, opened the sesame, and then he hid in the treasure and took it and then they hid in big vases and then they died.

"...'Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves'?" Eliot asks, feeling a headache coming on.

"Yes, Baba and forty thief," Kimi nods.

At least he knows now where this came from. Nate has taken to buying books for Kimi, expensive, beautiful books, often classics, with exquisite illustrations. He would read them to her, and she would sit listening at his feet or in his lap with rapt attention at the magic of the words.

Nate's most recent gift had been _One Thousand and One Nights,_ more commonly known as _Arabian Nights._

Sophie had taken over the reading of that book, citing it as one of her favorites, and acting out the scenes "with all the voices," as Hardison puts it. She has been using Kimi's doll collection as props, with jackets and sofa cushions serving as the set for the stage.

Last night's story had been about Ali Baba. Parker had joined in gleefully when Sophie began "hiding" the dolls portraying the titular "forty" thieves (as Kimi's collection is not yet big enough for every thief to be included, Sophie had to make do with a mere representation of a large group of thieves, instead of giving each individual thief a character). Parker, always thorough in matters of stealing, had hidden the dolls in earnest, with Kimi as her eager assistant.

And now...

Now, there's a Barbie doll in the freezer.

"Kimi, baby, this is unsanitary," he tells his daughter. "Toys don't go in the freezer. They go in your toy box, okay?"

"Okay, Papa." Kimi takes the doll back and fusses with her dress a little. "Papa, _ne,_ what unsanny-rary?" she asks, stumbling over the English word a little. Kimi is fluent in Japanese and almost fluent in Russian (her mother had been a ballet dancer in Russia before returning to her homeland to start a dance school) and familiar with a couple of other languages, but with Eliot not around as much before her mother's death, English is still a little difficult for her.

"Unsanitary means it's not clean, it's dirty."

"Oh, okay." Kimi looks thoughtful for a moment. "She not dirty, Papa. We give her bath."

And that would explain why the doll's platinum blonde plastic hair is frozen stiff.

What with that earnest, wide-eyed look on her face, Eliot can't find any other way to answer her but "That's good, honey. That's- that's very thoughtful of you."

. . . . .

A house-wide search for all the hidden dolls reveals exactly twenty-four more dolls, twenty-five total.

Eliot sighs at that.

When they had first moved from Japan to Portland, Kimi's collection of toys had mainly been of the stuffed animal variety. She did have dolls, but Uncle Lin-Lin's gifts tended to be of the fluffy-squishy variety when they were not shiny rhinestone-studded costume jewelry. The toys Eliot had given his daughter were more likely to be sturdy toys built to last more than one generation, and not always "girly," but included toys that he and Lindsey had played with in their youth.

Once he and Kimi relocated to Portland, the variety and number of her toys had increased significantly. Suddenly, loving, doting new uncles and aunts began plying her with dolls, books, gadgets, and…miniature rappelling and safe-cracking gear. Eliot had confiscated these last gifts from Parker before Kimi could see them, but the rest he deemed safe enough.

Sure, she's getting spoiled, but it's not like he can stop a bunch of thieves determined to shower _their_ Kimiko Marie with all the physical manifestations of their love and devotion that they can give.

He's tried. Believe him, he's tried.

And Lindsey's the worst of them.

With completely shameless abandon, the competitive _bastard_ upped his toy-giving, determined to give Kimi the _best_ gifts out of them all.

The Barbies are a new thing. Twenty-five of them. All at once. Collectors' items, too, but Lindsey had shrugged and laughed when Kimi had opened all the boxes and started to play with them gleefully. "Toys are made to be played with, not sit around gatherin' dust," he'd said.

Well, they are definitely getting the hell played out of them, for sure.

Barbies in the freezer, in the linen closet, among Eliot's wines in the basement, all over the house.

"Dammit, Parker. Damn Sophie, an' Nate, an' Lindsey," he grumbles as he fishes a doll out of the toilet tank. He "damns" Hardison, too, just for the heck of it, although all he's done in this particular instance is set up the "stage lights" and "soundtrack" for Sophie's _Arabian Nights_ retelling. But this time, damn Parker most of all for hiding the damn things.

"Dum?" Kimi chirps behind him, a twinkle in her eye because she _knows_ that's a bad word.

"Don't say that word, Kimi-chan," Eliot corrects himself wearily. Darn and drat it, Parker!

. . . . .

The next day, after a hot couple of hours in the garden with Kimi, Eliot is dismayed to find in a tray of ice cubes, assorted Barbie accessories frozen in the ice.

"Parker," he grumbles under his breath, as he dumps the offending ice cubes into a bowl to melt. He struggles against the urge to throw the whole thing out, as Kimi would very likely pout at him tearfully over the loss of the tiny plastic shoes, necklaces, tiaras, purses, and rings - all in varying shades of pink.

"Parker, I swear, one of these days, _one of these days..."_

He gets his revenge on the thief by putting veggies in her jello disguised as fruit chunks. She doesn't notice until the last bite...

"It's a pea! You put a pea in my jello!"

"Put under bed," Kimi advises her, "Real princess can feel pea under bed."

Even Parker joins in on the ensuing laughter, as they all remember the Princess Eliot and the Pea(s) incident, in which Eliot's bed mattress mysteriously erupted with twenty-five pounds of dry peas one night after a reading of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Princess and the Pea."

"Kimiko Marie!"

. . . . .

* * *

Japanese translation:

_Kita yo:_ I'm here

_ne:_ hey


	21. Fractions

Summary: Musings about quarters and fifths. When Sophie leaves.

Quarter (fraction) = 25%

* * *

**Fractions**

A quarter of something is usually better than a fifth. Unless it's a bad thing, in which case the smaller the fraction is, the better (except if they're odds for survival).

Or like when you're a part of a group. It's better to be a fifth than a fourth. Much better.

Before, before the team, before 'family,' they hadn't been fractions, at least, that they knew of. They had all worked alone, and well. But they weren't their best, you see. Because unbeknownst to all of them, they had actually all been fractions.

Broken. Unwhole.

And that first job, they got together, Nate and Eliot and Hardison and Parker, and they had been good. They fit well together. They thought that maybe, just maybe, they could each be one quarter of a whole. But secretly, only secretly.

And then Sophie came along and then they all knew, somewhere deep in the little hidden corners of their hearts, that they were meant to be fifths.

Five parts of a whole.

They weren't just good; they were great.

But then Sophie had to leave, and the team was four again.

You'd think that having a fourth would be better than having a fifth of something because a quarter of something is bigger than a fifth of it. Logically, being a fourth ought to be roomier than being a fifth, right?

The thing is, though, once you experience being a fifth, being a fourth feels too empty, like there's too much room to rattle around in. It feels like you're all only four-fifths together instead of a four quarters, like you're leaving room for Sophie to come back to after she's done looking for herself, but that space is still empty.

And then when Tara comes, she's the wrong shape, like a piece from another puzzle infiltrating the puzzle you're currently working on. Sophie was the right shape, exactly the right shape for their puzzle. Their odd, irregularly-shaped puzzle.

But Sophie comes back, and then they're one whole, but just when they think everything's okay again, they lose yet another piece of the metaphorical puzzle.

Dammit Nate!

So again, they rattle around like four fifths missing twenty percent, and they get Nate out. And that's it. Everyone hates being a twenty-five percent when they could be a twenty.

Parker volunteers to metaphorically super glue the metaphorical puzzle pieces together, but she only gets confused looks.

* * *

AN: Yeah, I know. I confused myself while I was writing this one, too. Oh, Parker-thoughts, why must you be so...confusing and convoluted?


	22. SLF: The Jack O'Lantern Job Part 1

Summary: Twenty-five cons run by the "Sticky Little Finger" kids (and family), in no particular order. Divided into Part 1 and 2 because it got way too long. (So technically, it's not 25, but whatever. My fic, my rules.)

AN: Because of the limitations of time and space (a TARDIS would help here, huh? *giggle*), this is more like a 2-part overview of twenty-five cons. Some are shorter than others. I _may_ expand on these at a later time.

Thanks to **patty cake rocks** for the idea!

* * *

**The Jack O'Lantern Job and Other Cons, Part 1**

**. . . . .**

**The School Bully Job**

Sitting in her father's customary seat, Irene swirls her glass of apple juice, and-

"Carrie. Run it."

. . . . .

**The Jack O'Lantern Job**

It's the night after Halloween, and the kids are in bed, and all is quiet, and Mr. and Mrs. Hardison-Parker get the munchies.

Like they do every year, they _cough_ borrow some candy from each of their children's enormous bright orange jack o'lantern bucket.

Except this year…

"Gotcha!"

. . . . .

**The Easter Egg Job**

The Annual Leverage Eater Egg Hunt is a big thing. Every year, Eliot mixes and melts and pours beautiful brown rivers of chocolate into molds. The Parents – Nate and Sophie, and Hardison and Parker –hide the heavenly-smelling eggs in horrendously difficult places. Nate's eggs are bound to be found only by unravelling a series of riddles, and Parker's are wont to end up in air vents and actual birds' nests.

One year, Frankie gets a head start on his siblings and cousins by getting to all the candy first, eating it, and then meandering back to the start line where everyone is waiting for _all _the kids to gather before beginning the Hunt.

The terrible, horrible, _awful_ tummyache gives him away. Traitor.

But that's not the worst part of it. All the sisters and parents and extended relatives yelling at him give him a headache and lots and lots of guiltache, too.

But he couldn't help it; he's a thief!

. . . . .

**The Naughty or Nice Job**

It's really a wonder that Hardison – stumbling, bumbling _Hardison_ – gets away with it every year, but get away he does.

At least until this year.

"Daddy, awe you thteawing our Chwithmath pwethenth?"

"Uh."

It would have been better if his wife had been in on it, too, but seeing who Mrs. Hardison is, well…

"The label says, 'To Parker, From Santa,' Alec," Parker says sternly, hands on her hips.

"Well, about that, Parker, uh…" _Shit._ They must have done a stakeout or something to catch him, er, _Santa,_ filling their stockings.

"About that…"

"Grinch!" "Scwoode!"

. . . . .

**The Companion Job**

"So he's gonna be stuck in time out and has to stay in at recess all the rest of this week and next week, so he won't be able to bother you and Rory and the other kids anymore, okay?"

Irene folds her hands on the outdoor lunch table she calls her "office desk." From beside her, Carrie stares at their client, a girl named Amy, with the tilted head that indicates that she is thinking, usually some odd Carrie-esque thoughts.

"Thanks, Irene," Amy gushes. "Thank you, like, so much!"

"Do you know someone called the Doctor?" Carrie asks suddenly.

"What?"

"Your names- "

"Carrie," Irene sighs, "Doctor Who isn't real."

"Who's Doctor Who?"

Carrie's horrified gasp at poor Amy's question could be heard all the way to- to Gallifrey.

. . . . .

**The First Con Job**

Sophie groans and props her tired head up on a hand. "She's started crying for no reason at all. Sometimes it sounds like she's crying her hungry cry, but then she's really not that hungry. Or it's her dirty diaper call, but the bloody thing's dry!"

"So it's like she just wants attention?" Eliot asks, a twinkle starting in his eye. "And she'll do anything to get it?"

As tired as she is, Sophie doesn't catch his meaning until-

"She's- She's- You think she's- But she's a baby!"

"Yeah?" _So?_ say Eliot's eyebrows.

Sophie's horrified shock morphs into blinding pride as she clasps her hands to her chest.

"Baby's first con!"

"Oh, brother."

. . . . .

**The Librarian Job**

"They hacked into the library's system so they could avoid returning a book?" Sophie asks while getting ready for bed.

"Apparently," Nate sighs, pulling his socks off and depositing them in the laundry basket.

"Why, did one of them lose it?"

"No, it was some book called _Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief_. They thought that meant they had to steal it. Fast."

"Ah," Sophie says and shakes her head; those kids never fail to amuse her. "Of course. How appropriate."

"Hardison's making them pay for it out of their allowance."

"The school will never see it."

. . . . .

**The Cookie Monster Job**

"Who stole the cookies?"

"Frankie did it!" "Irene did it!" "Carrie did it!"

"Do we need to call Aunt Sophie over for the Lie Test?"

_Two hours later…_

"They teamed up and stole them together and split them up? That's why they technically weren't lying?"

"They're getting good."

. . . . .

**The Paper Moon Job**

"So here's how we get fifty dollars out of five."

Irene explains the plan.

"Will that work?"

"I saw it in a movie and…updated it."

They wait from their various vantage spots in the grocery store and watch without looking like they're watching until…

"Man on register number five just paid with a fifty."

"Good job, Carrie. Frankie, go."

Frankie gets in line with a candy bar in one hand and a folded-up paper bill in the other. He waits _really, really, really_ patiently for his turn, and when he gets there, he proudly slams his melted candy bar and money onto the counter and beams up at the cashier.

"I wanna buy this candy bar."

"'Kay," the gum-chewing girl says, bored the hell out of her mind, and gives him change for his five dollar bill.

Frankie looks at the money in his hand, and then back up at the cashier. "This isn't right," he says, "I gave you fifty dollars. Fifty _whole_ dollars."

"No," the girl says, slightly nervous because she's _pretty_ sure, "You gave me a five."

"I gave you the fifty dollar bill my Gramma gave me for my birthday!" Frankie cries, getting excited and attracting lots and lots of attention, "You took my birthday money!"

The manager hurries over. "What is going on here?"

The cashier explains, and so does Frankie, all innocent tearful eyes and trembling lower lip.

"Well, let's just check and see, then, shall we?"

The manager opens the cash drawer, and – "Well, would you look at that? A fifty dollar bill. Is this yours, young man?"

"Uh-huh." Tears threaten to spill over down the smooth round cheek.

"Here you go then, son. Here's your fifty, and you can have that candy bar on the house, alright?"

Frankie sniffs. "Okay. Thanks, mister." He gives the manager a brave smile. "Thanks a lot!"

"Alright, off you go then."

Frankie waves at the manager and the soon-to-be-in-big-trouble cashier, and skips out the door…to meet his sister and cousin who are waiting down the street.

"Got it?"

"Yeah!"

"That's fifty and…change? You kept the change she gave you?" Irene grins.

"Good boy, Frankie!" Carrie says, patting him on the head.

"I'm not a dog, Carrie," Frankie growls his best Uncle Eliot growl.

"You can keep the candy bar," Irene says, trying to stop another sibling squabble, but to no avail. "What should we do with this money?" she says a little louder.

Both Hardisons spin to face her with superhuman speed.

"Keep it, duh!"

. . . . .

**The (Carpet) Burn Scam Job**

"Oh, it burns! _Buuuurrrrnsss!"_ Irene moans dramatically. "I'm _bleeeediiiing!"_

"We'll take her to the nurse's office," Carrie volunteers, grabbing her cousin's arm.

Michael resists rolling his eyes and takes Irene's other flailing arm.

"That's why we don't run inside," the teacher says, but lets them leave the assembly room.

As soon as they turn a corner: "All clear?"

"Yep," Frankie says, appearing out of nowhere. "Ready!"

"Alright. Let's go con a bully."

. . . . .

**The Baking Soda Volcano Job**

"Okay, gang. Let's go steal a science project."

Frankie raises a hand and waves it wildly. "Can I do the exploding part?"

_"__You_ can explode if you want," Carrie snarks, still upset about something or other.

Irene sighs. Why her?

. . . . .

**The Ferris Bueller Job**

"They skipped school? Again?"

. . . . .

**The Doggone Job**

"So if we put up flyers saying that we lost a dog, someone will come and give us one?" Carrie frowns. She doesn't quite get it yet.

"That's the idea," Irene says with a sly grin.

"How do we make our parents let us keep it?"

Irene's grin turns even craftier. "Frankie: Puppy dog eyes, Level 3 - Uncle Eliot."

"Yeah," Carrie says after observing with her head tilted for a minute, "That'll do it. So tackle Uncle Eliot first, then get him to convince our parents and yours?"

"Yeah. Uncle Eliot's a big softy," Irene says. "Weakest link."

"Can I stop now?" Frankie asks, slightly muffled as he tries not to move his face, "My nose itches."

. . . . .

**The Naughty or Nice Job, Reprise**

"So how can we tell if we're on the Naughty list or the Nice list?" Carrie asks. She's wearing a green elf hat for a bit of holiday spirit.

"We just assume we're on the Naughty list and start from there, I guess," Irene says, smoothing her red velvety dress down.

"Why?"

"Because we steal and we cheat and we lie," Irene says, "But if we use our magic powers for good, we can get on the Nice list."

"How do we do that?"

"We help people who can't help themselves."

. . . . .

* * *

AN: Um yes, "The Companion Job" is a _Doctor Who_ in-joke. Sorry if you didn't get it. Btw, Carrie is convinced that Rory is a boy, but actually, the Rory here is short for Lorelai. *gratuitous _Gilmore Girls_ reference* And "The Paper Moon Job" is from the book/movie of the same title and has a description of how to pull the con seen in this section.

Anon review reply:

**Leveragelover**: Pregnant Parker? Mm, I think I touched on that in "Fat Quarter" in this collection, but I can always do more...Not in this collection probably, but maybe in a separate story later. Do you have a pairing preference?


	23. SLF: The Jack O'Lantern Job Part 2

Summary: Twenty-five cons run by the "Sticky Little Finger" kids (and family), in no particular order. Divided into Part 1 and 2 because it got way too long. (So technically, it's not 25, but whatever. My fic, my rules.)

* * *

**The Jack O'Lantern Job and Other Cons, Part 2**

**. . . . .**

**The Chocolate Pie Job**

"The Chocolate Pie con?" Irene asks. "What's that?"

"It's like the Apple Pie but with mud wrestling," Carrie explains.

"Oh." Everyone contemplates that for a moment.

"Nah."

"Rainbow Skittles Pie?" Frankie tries.

"What's that?"

"Same thing, but with paintballs."

"Huh." Everyone thinks about it.

"Sounds good," Irene decides. "Where'd you hear about it?"

"I just thought of it because I wanted Skittles," Frankie says, digging into the bag of candy.

"Frankie!"

. . . . .

**The Tomorrow Job**

"You were so great!" gushes Sophie proudly, "You'll be the next Barbara Streisand or Liza Minnelli, just you see!"

"That was wonderful!" Nate says in what is definitely his con voice. He had spent a large part of the performance in the men's room, definitely _not_ hiding. "Good job, Irene."

"Yeah, you were great," says Carrie with a rictus grin. "Right, Frankie?"

"Oh yeah," Frankie says, happily, having been bribed with lots and lots of chocolate by his father into perfect malleability for the next hour or so.

"Ewzuh," says Ruby, but fortunately (or with Machiavellian intent on the toddler's part), no one realizes that what she really meant was, _"My ears hurt." _"Awpul!" _("Awful!")_

"I've never heard anything like it," Michael says truthfully, not having had a sufficient amount of training yet to get away with lying to Aunt Sophie and Irene.

"That was the worst production of _Annie _I have ever seen," Eliot says in a very, very quiet voice to Hardison after he's done showering Irene with praise.

"Tell me about it," the hacker agrees. He had taken the opportunity provided by two wailing infants to go outside to _ahem_ calm them down.

"I didn't get it," Parker frowns. "There's no singing in orphanages. And duh, the sun'll come out tomorrow. It's almost summer!"

"Encore, Irene darling, encore!" squeals Sophie, clapping. "Ooh, ooh, pose first," she says, snapping a picture with the camera permanently attached to her hand for the night.

"Edge away slowly?"

"Definitely. Love that kid, but…Yeah."

. . . . .

**The Test Job**

"Got the answers to Miss Jenkin's next test?" Irene asks.

"Yep," Carrie answers and hands the paper to her.

None of them are in Miss Jenkins' class, but she is notorious for giving impossible tests. Kids have complained and so have parents, but she merely maintains that the students are at fault here, and possibly the parents too, as they have produced children who simply _do not listen_.

"So everyone's gonna get the right answers?" Frankie asks.

"Right," Irene says, "And Miss Jenkins is going to have all the wrong answers. So everyone will get the answers wrong again, but only at first. When the other teachers check, they'll see that Miss Jenkins has the wrong answers in her answer key, and they'll think that she's had them wrong the whole time. And then she won't teach here anymore. Or anywhere."

"Now that's leverage."

. . . . .

**The Cheat Sheet Job**

"So they busted a homework cheating ring?" asks Hardison.

Nate snorts. "'Busted' isn't exactly the word I'd use."

"Why not?" Hardison knows that he's going to have a headache by the end of this conversation. He just knows it. He knows it.

"I believe they were involved in the circulation of merchandise."

Yes, Hardison was right. Headache. Right there. "No," he groans.

"Yes," sighs Nate.

"Ground them for five weeks?"

"Sounds good. Let's do it." Irene might get six; Nate has no doubts that she was at the center of this one.

. . . . .

**The Pony Express Job**

"What do you mean, horse allergy?" Eliot says, a little disappointed. "All of you?"

"Uh-huh," they all nod.

"Irene too?"

"Oh yes," she says, _"Terrible_ horse allergies, transferred through solidarity."

"'Transferred through solidarity,'" Eliot repeats, rubbing his forehead. "What about you, Michael?" he asks hopefully.

He shrugs. "I like horses," he says, much to his father's relief.

"Alright, you're up first," Eliot says, "Can you ride?"

"Yeah."

Half an hour later, Eliot's trying to decide which of two horses going in opposite directions to chase.

"Wa-hooo!" yodels Carrie, hanging off of her speeding horse by a hand in a stirrup and a leg hooked over the poor horse's neck.

"Wee-heee!" shrieks Frankie standing on his horse and doing the classic _Titanic_ "King of the World" pose.

Watching the shouting Eliot try to round up the out-of-control hacker-thief spawn from her sidesaddle seat on a white horse, Irene sighs, "He _really_ should have seen this coming. But horses just _have_ to be his blind spot. I tried to help, I really did."

"They're crazy," Michael observes from atop his horse. "They are _insane."_

"No, that's normal for them."

"Insane."

. . . . .

**The Princess Job**

"Yes, this is my daughter. No, she is not a Saudi Arabian princess, nor is she an Indian princess, or an Italian contessa, a lost Romanov, or the secret love child of Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber. She is my daughter, and her name is Irene Charlotte Ford, and she is in big, _big_ trouble."

. . . . .

**The Time Travel Job**

"They sped up the clocks at school?" Nate rubs his head.

"Looks like," Hardison groans.

"How did you know it was them and not just a normal glitch in the school's system?"

"Uh," Hardison hems.

"Hardison?"

"Gotta keep an eye on 'em, ya know?" the hacker protests, "Never know what they can get up to. I caught Carrie tryin' to hack into the White House servers the other day."

"You hacked into your kids' computers."

"Well, someone's gotta make sure they're not bein' grade-school terrorists or somethin'."

"Freedom fighters, Hardison," Nate says, "From a certain point of view, I believe they're called freedom fighters."

. . . . .

**The Retrieval Job**

"You're the retrieval specialist," Parker huffs, completely frustrated. "Retrieve my kids!"

"Don't you know where they are?" Eliot asks, wiping his hands on a dishtowel. "They're your kids."

"Exactly! They're my kids! And they have a doctor's appointment in an hour!"

"Instant _whoosh_, gone," Hardison adds with sound effects and hand gestures. "Can't find them anywhere."

Eliot sighs. "Fine. Give me everything you've got."

Nate, who's over at Eliot's for a game of chess, walks by the electronics-strewn table five minutes later.

"Check your apartment," he suggests after a glance.

"But we already looked there! All over!"

"But are you there now?" the mastermind says, and walks away, sipping his coffee.

Eliot looks at the others and shrugs.

_Ten minutes later…_

"You said it would work, Irene!"

"I didn't know my dad was going to help them! Sorry, have fun at the doctor's!"

. . . . .

**The Sing Along Job**

"He can sing?" Irene asks, only a little surprised. Uncle Eliot used to sing them all to sleep with lullabies when they were babies, so why wouldn't Michael be able to sing?

"He's really good," Carrie says, "I heard him singing in the shower when I was in Uncle Eliot's air vents."

"The talent show is next week, but he won't sing if we just ask him to," Irene says thoughtfully.

"We should all enter," Frankie says, working on his math homework and art homework at the same time, pencils in two hands to get it done faster. Ambidextrous, definitely.

"We should. Then he'd have to," Irene says thoughtfully. "Maybe I'll offer to sing with him."

She does _not_ notice the horrified expressions on her cousins' faces.

. . . . .

**The Swap Job**

Larry Tung is a bully, plain and simple. He pulls girls' hair, trips smaller kids up, and wears expensive clothes just so he can make fun of those who don't, or can't.

He's a bully.

He has a special, expensive backpack, and a special, expensive lunchbox, and a special, expensive pencil box that he is very, very proud of.

One day, he pulls out his special, expensive pencil box from his special, expensive backpack, and, eying the pigtails of the girl in front of him for pulling later, he reaches into his special, expensive pencil box…

The resulting shriek is special, high-pitched, and very satisfying.

Wriggling inside the box is a mass of earthworms and beetles creeping and crawling all over themselves, almost spilling out of the box.

Larry slams the lid closed as the teacher approaches to ask what the matter is.

When he opens the lid again, there's…well, nothing out of the ordinary. Special, expensive pencils, a special, expensive eraser, and a special, expensive ruler.

He gapes.

The teacher goes away, and Larry opens the lid again, cautiously. Pencils, eraser, ruler. Okay.

Relieved, he puts it aside and pulls out some papers out from his desk, like the teacher had said to do. He opens his pencil box again with confidence, and…

The shriek is not-so-special, but definitely more high-pitched than the last time.

Carrie smiles and slips Larry's real special, expensive pencil box into her own normal, run-of-the-mill backpack (with special enhancements).

She just can't _wait_ until lunch, when she and Frankie will replace Larry's special, expensive lunchbox with one of their own that's just as special.

. . . . .

**The Job That Wasn't**

"Let's go steal a gumball machine!"

Irene and Carrie look at each other and then back at Frankie. "Why?"

"Because I want gum and I'm out of quarters," he explains.

"That's not a good reason to steal," scolds Irene.

Frankie pouts. "But I want gum!"

Irene sighs and pats her pockets for loose coins. "Here's a quarter."

"But it costs seventy-five cents."

"Then too bad."

"I want gum!" Frankie says again, lower lip going out further.

"Ugh! Here's your gumball, Frankie," Carrie says, handing the candy to the triumphant Frankie.

"Carrie…"

"What?" Carrie says, blowing a gum bubble herself, "He was being annoying!"

. . . . .

* * *

AN: Now that I'm done with these mini-cons, I'm kind of scared of these kids, to tell the truth, haha. "The Pony Express Job" is most definitely a Christian Kane reference. Cookies if you get it!


	24. Still Free

Summary: _Leverage/Firefly_ crossover in which the _Leverage _crew and the _Serenity _crew cross paths.

This story is in this collection because _Firefly _takes place in the year **25**17. It would have been better if it was 2525 or just 2500, but…Yeah, 'kay, this is my collection, so I can _totally_ bend the rules however I want. :P So there.

Confession: Even though I've seen it, I don't know a whole lot about _Firefly_, _Leverage_ being my main playground these days. I wiki-ed _Firefly _extensively, so some details are from the actual show or movie, and others are from the books or comic books – whatever was there on the characters' bio page, etc. I've read some _Firefly/Leverage_ fic, and they have all been awesome, and this…isn't, since again, I don't know a whole lot about one fandom. But I did my best, and so, without further ado, here it is.

Chapter title comes from the _Firefly _theme song. The whole line is: "I don't care, I'm still free."

* * *

**Still Free**

_Somewhere in the Verse, Year 2517 AD_

"Sister," says River-

. . . . .

-and Parker, with a tilt of her head, as if hearing something only she can hear.

"There she goes again," observes Eliot, stabbing at his plate with what to the rest of the world would be anger but for Eliot is merely smug satisfaction at being able to cook up an actual _meal_ with only the freeze-dried and canned rations aboard the _Leverage._

. . . . .

_"__Wo bu dong," _grunts Jayne, jabbing his fork across the table at River. "She's crazy, 'nless she's a-callin' that brother of hers her sister." He snorts. "Granted, he's pansy enough that she might mistake 'im for a girl."

He grins at the displeased expression that passes across the long-suffering Simon's face.

"He used to play dress-up with me," River says, suddenly more lucid than usual, and with an evil glint in her eye to boot.

"River!"

. . . . .

"Who, Parker?" Sophie asks, always interested when the word 'dress-up' makes its appearance in a conversation.

_"__Ge ge,"_ replies Parker.

"I thought your brother was younger," Hardison says, frowning. There hadn't been much information on the Cortex about Parker, but lately she has begun to share more of her past with them. Her brother, running away from the Alliance. The latter is obvious; aren't they all?

What she is running from, however, is vastly different from what the rest of them are running from.

For Nate, the captain, it is the past; the Alliance had ruled that since he and his wife (now ex-wife) didn't have enough money to pay for Sam's treatment, Sam was merely…a necessary casualty. As if not being rich enough to matter was cause enough to let a child die. So Nate had quit his job with the Alliance and had turned renegade with his team of conmen (and -women).

Sophie, a permanent "passenger," is on the run from herself; all those people she has been, all those myriad beings, all with their own memories, all with their own childhoods and likes and dislikes and characters, all of them crammed, stuffed into her mind. Travelling with the _Leverage_ crew allows her to air them out, to give them a little freedom, so she doesn't go mad from keeping them all cooped up in her brain.

First Mate Eliot had been a Browncoat. No one knows which battles he had fought in, but the rumor is that he had been at the Valley of Serenity the day the Alliance won. Rumor also goes that he had been a Dust Devil after the war, too. No one has the guts to ask, though. The reputation that he has built doing...whatever it is he does...is impressive enough to deter anyone.

Hardison, the pilot, has broken into too many Alliance networks over the years to not be on the run, permanently, if he doesn't want to get caught. He's good enough that he can make the Cortex tell the Alliance that he's on one of the outer planets, when he's actually much closer, and vice versa.

Parker…Parker is complicated. Broken. She wakes up in the middle of the night, screaming, waking the whole gorram ship up along with her. The ship's mechanic, she spends her days hugging pipes and swinging from the machinery in the belly of the ship. She's good at talking to the _Leverage_, but communicating with anything else is a mystery to her.

. . . . .

They figure out what it's all about when the _Serenity_ and the _Leverage _land on the same moon, both with the intention of "doin' trade" with the corrupt mayor of the moon's only major town.

"Alleyne?"

"Spencer?"

. . . . .

Turns out, Eliot really had been at the Valley of Serenity. He really had been a Dust Devil. He had served with Mal Reynolds and Zoe Washburne (nee Alleyne – and hadn't that been a surprise, especially after he met her husband) during the war, and had joined the terrorist Dust Devils with Zoe after the war. After that…well, his former comrades don't seem too pleased about what they'd heard about him, nor is Eliot, for that matter, too proud of it himself.

Jayne, on the other hand, greets "Lee-Lee" with unexpected warmth and a bone-crushing hug. Eliot rolls his eyes at the nickname, but returns his older brother's embrace with as much vigor.

"Lee-Lee?" Sophie giggles.

"Shut up."

Hardison is wondering if Eliot is connected to everyone on that ship, when Shepherd Book makes his appearance. Hardison had lived with a foster family on Persephone for a while, and the shepherd's abbey had been nearby. Nana had often made him help Shepherd Book in his garden, and they had become close.

The Tams are an absolute surprise.

When Simon hears that the captain and first mate had met up with an old friend from a ship called the _Leverage_, he hurries out to meet them. It was the _Leverage_ crew who had helped him free River from the Academy, after all.

Years ago, Simon Tam had been the only doctor who had argued to continue treating Sam Ford after the Alliance had informed Nate and Maggie that treatments could not go on due to lack of funding. He had been overruled, but when Simon needed help, it was Nate who went to his aid, Nate and his ragtag team of thieves and conmen.

They had gotten River out of that institution of torture in cryo (Parker had insisted, saying that "she'll scream, all the screaming"), and delivered her to Simon at a safe drop-off place on Persephone.

Parker had insisted on staying on the ship during the rescue, but once the frozen River was on board, she had taken to sitting next to the pod and humming or sometimes talking softly to it, as if reassuring it.

She creeps forward now, until she is standing in front of River, who stands still and stares at her.

It is revealed afterwards that they had both been getting stranger and stranger as their respective ships had neared the moon. They had begun holding conversations that were evidently one-sided, but turned out to be real conversations held over a psychic channel.

Yes, they are both psychics.

Both young women had been immensely intelligent from a young age, and the Alliance had taken notice of them. Once in their grasp, the young women, then just children, had been subjected to experiment upon experiment and in the process became psychic. The incessant torture had left them mentally and emotionally unbalanced, broken.

Parker had been rescued years ago by a conman named Archie, and River, by the _Leverage_ crew at her brother's request, but they both had left that place with scars that would never completely heal. Even now, though they have improved with the love bestowed upon them by their companions, their crewmates, they are still people apart from the rest of the 'verse.

As their physical locations had become closer, the connection forged between them by the experiments performed upon them had strengthened, until they finally meet, face to face.

"Sister," they greet each other in sync, though they have never met. They hold their hands up, palm almost touching palm, and just stand there with their eyes closed.

"What the _guai_ 're they doin' now?" Jayne grumbles.

"Looks like you got your own _wo bu dong_, Jayney," Eliot comments, as if amused and disquieted at the same time by the two young women in front of them.

"Crazy don't cut it, _di di,_ don't even cover it," Jayne says, shaking his head at how long those two _feng_ girls have been standing there playin' "hands up."

"They're alike, aren't they?" comments Inara to Sophie, who recognize each other as former…classmates.

"Yes, I think they are. I'm glad," Sophie replies, "I'm glad that Parker isn't alone in this 'verse. She has us, but sometimes, I think we don't quite understand her."

"I know what you mean," Inara says. "Sometimes, I feel like if I ever get my hands on the people who did this to her…"

"I'd kill them," Sophie nods grimly. "Yes, I know."

"River?" says Simon softly after a couple of minutes.

The brunette tilts her head, and Parker moves with her, then guffaws out loud.

"That's okay," she says in what she seems to think is a reassuring voice, "All brothers are idiots."

"River!"

Eliot and Jayne smirk knowingly, until they each catch the other's expression:

"What the hell you laughin' at, you _hwen dan_?!"

Thereafter, their respective captains forbid them from being on either ship at the same time, unless they want to keep paying for all the damage, _chwen joo_.

. . . . .

* * *

**Chinese translations (from various places online):**

_Wo bu dong_ – crazy girl

_Ge ge_ – older brother

_Guai_ - hell

_Di di_ – younger brother

_Feng_ – crazy

_Hwen dan_ – bastard, jerk, lit. rotten egg

_Chwen joo_ – idiot, lit. retarded pig

**AN1:** While I've read stories in which Eliot was a Browncoat with Mal and Zoe, I don't think I've ever read a story where Eliot is Jayne's brother. I wanted to do something different, so that's what that was.

**Anon Review Reply:**

dsnygal: Yes, the Pony Express was referenced in "The Two Horse Job," which I believe was referencing _Into the West_, in which Christian Kane played a Pony Express rider. Thanks for reading!

**AN2:** Wow, so this is the next to the last one, guys! I made it!...Er, almost. ;D Thanks for sticking with me this far! See you guys tomorrow!


	25. Serendipity

Summary: Everyone's 25th birthdays.

AN: This is it! The last one in this collection. I hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I have, and I hope to see you all next year for 26! (Oh jeez, what should I write for that one? *pulls out hair* Is it just me, or does this get longer every year? Hm, I wonder why I feel like that...*sarcastic*) Thanks for reading!

Thanks to **zippy zany** for the idea. I tweaked it a little bit, but I hope you like it!

* * *

**Serendipity**

**1987**

On Nate's 25th birthday, he gets drunk. It's getting to be somewhat of a tradition. But that's okay, really.

He's with friends, in particular, his new friend with whom he's already become particularly close, Jim Sterling.

Jim's just moved here from England, and in an attempt to get his new coworker settled in and fully comfortable in American culture, Nate had, of course, invited him out for a drink. They'd discovered that they share the same appreciation for a glass of fine whiskey and a good game of chess.

Nate's never met his match in the game, at least until Sterling. It's good to be challenged.

But tonight, no chess, just whiskey.

"To Nathan Ford," Sterling says, for the fifth time, raising his full glass, "A _damn _jolly good fellow."

Amid the echoing cheers of "To Nate" "Yeah, Nate" "Damn good whiskey", Nate catches a flash of pale gold out of the corner of his eye.

When he turns watery, unfocused eyes in that direction, he sees nothing untoward at first, then when he blinks a few times, he sees…

Big hazel eyes, a child's eyes, look up at him from a dark corner of the bar, half hidden by strands of long gold hair. Lonely, bright eyes.

"Hey, brat!" a man's voice growls, and the girl disappears with a startled gasp.

There's a sharp yelp, and the man's voice mutters, "Serves 'er right, the damn nosy brat."

"Hey!" Nate says, rising in his seat, "don' hit 'er. Y' shou'n' hit 'er," he slurs, and…

Well, he sort of _accidentally _starts a brawl.

"Was it worth it?" Sterling asks drily at the office the next day. He'd ended up with two black eyes. This on top of the hangover.

"Women and kids, Sterling," Nate replies through his fat lip. He touches a tooth gingerly with his tongue. A bit loose. Should be fine if he's careful about what he eats for a few days. "You shouldn't hit them. The powerful bullying the weak, that's wrong." He thinks about the way his father used to do things. "It's wrong."

"Nothing's going to change for that girl," Sterling says, but without a whole lot of conviction.

"I called social services," Nate replies. "They ought to take care of her, at least for a while."

. . . . .

**1993…-ish…maybe…**

She walks along the streets of Paris, taking in the sights, the smells, the sounds of the city, _her_ city.

She's thinking of what new name to give herself – a new identity just for today, for her _real_ birthday – and someone bumps into her, a sullen-looking young girl, blonde, and rather pretty in a sharp, determined kind of way. The collision almost knocks her off-balance.

Teetering on her new high-heeled shoes, she briefly considers telling her off for her rudeness.

She gives the girl no further thought until she tries to pay for her expensive birthday lunch and finds that her wallet is gone.

"That bloody little pickpocket!"

. . . . .

**2000**

Eliot's in Damascus for his birthday. It's not his first time there – the first time had been for a mission, but this time around, he just needs somewhere to spend a couple of weeks in between jobs.

So he sits in a bar, thinks about calling Aimee, think about calling his mama, thinks about calling his sister, and _doesn't _think about calling his daddy.

He ends up nursing a drink and watching the news on the beat-up dusty old television set sitting on the counter at the bar.

The flies buzz lazily near the ceiling, swooping down occasionally to land on the sleepy rum-drinkers and the sticky glasses.

Eliot shifts in his seat and stamps down on a wince. Wouldn't do to show anyone that he's injured. The broken ribs, dislocated shoulder, and the graze a flying bullet left on his leg throb.

A news story on the television catches his attention: a set of very famous and very expensive earrings have been stolen from the National Museum here in Damascus. Huh, well, he thinks, it wasn't him.

The door swings open, and a woman walks in, swathed in a silk headscarf and wearing sunglasses.

Expensive-looking, he notes, looks like she's on the run from something.

She walks with deceptive calm to the counter and orders a whiskey on the rocks in pretty good Arabic, and tells the bartender to give it to the man who'll come in a few minutes looking for her. Then she turns mysteriously, winks at Eliot, and walks past the puzzled-looking bartender, through the door leading to the back room of the place, and presumably, out the back door.

Interesting, Eliot thinks, taking another sip of his own whiskey, interesting. She didn't even pay for that drink, he thinks, just as the bartender finishes pouring it out and comes to the same conclusion.

Luckily for the bartender, a man comes in soon enough, just like the woman had said, and asks which way she'd gone, just like she'd said he would.

The surly bartender just puts the glass of whiskey in front of the man, an American from the sound of him.

"Uh," the American says, a little puzzled.

Poor schmuck, Eliot thinks, gonna lose his girl while he works out what's goin' with that bartender.

He briefly considers helping a brother out, but just then, the man goes and says that he's an insurance investigator trying to catch a criminal, and well, Eliot's just glad he didn't say anything.

In fact, since he's just stolen something, too, he probably shouldn't stick around for too long, just in case this guy knows his face.

He slips out of the place while the American's bargaining with the bartender for information.

. . . . .

**2003**

It's her birthday today. Well, she thinks. She's pretty sure, at least.

"Happy birthday to me," she whispers to the wind, checks her special new birthday harness, and jumps off the roof.

"Wa-heeeeee!"

Paris is a pretty place to be at night.

The lights are just like the lights on a Christmas tree.

She'd climbed the Eiffel Tower earlier that day, right up to the tippy tippy top…from the outside. People had yelled at her, but she was really only trying to get away from that insurance man who'd been really good at chasing her.

She'd gotten away, though, like she always does.

She's good like that.

She'll steal something shiny tonight, and then when she gets back to her warehouse of the month, she'll snuggle down with Bunny in a bed made out of money.

"Happy birthday, Parker. Good night, Bunny."

. . . . .

**2011**

"So that's how everyone spent their twenty-fifth birthdays?" Hardison asks, amazed. "Damn. That's some coincidence."

"You get to spend yours with everyone," Parker says, a little wistfully.

Sophie huffs, still a little miffed, years later. "I can't believe you stole my wallet on my _birthday!"_

"I didn't know that it was your birthday," Parker says, pouting, "How was I supposed to know?"

"My birthday," sniffs Sophie, turning her head.

"I'm sorry," whines Parker petulantly. "I told you, I didn't know!"

"Aw, come on," Hardison says, "Don't be fightin' on my birthday! Come on, ladies, make up."

"So what day was that?" Nate asks Parker, "When's Sophie's real birthday?"

Parker shrugs. "How should I know? It wasn't _my _birthday."

Sophie makes an offended sound.

"Aw, come on," Hardison tries again.

Eliot snorts. "Women and birthdays, man. Don't get between a woman and her birthday. Don't forget it, either."

"That's why I'm trying to find out when it is," Nate says, frustrated. "You're telling me you can't remember when it was you stole Sophie's wallet?"

"Of course I don't remember," Parker says defensively, "I steal stuff all the time! How was I supposed to know it was Sophie?"

"But you remembered that it was Sophie," Eliot points out. "You just told us that it was you."

"That's 'cause the ID and stuff turned out to be fake," Parker explains, "Archie was kind of mad about it."

"That was a damn good ID, too," Sophie says, "Do you know how hard it is to replace a fake ID? It's not like you can just go to the DMV to get a new one."

"What was the birthday on the ID?" Nate tries again.

"Just give up, man," Eliot says, "She probably don't want you ta know how old she really is."

"Hey," Sophie cries, rounding on him, "I resent that!"

Eliot points his glass at her. "But it's true. Can't deny it."

Sophie huffs again, but doesn't argue.

Hardison puts his head on the table. He groans. "Anyone actually want to celebrate _my birthday_ instead of squabblin' like a coupla cats in a wet bag?"

The sounds of his teammates arguing continue over his head.

"Happy birthday to me," he mutters into the table.

Eliot bumps his shoulder with his. "What are you moanin' about? It's your birthday. Here," he says, emptying a random bottle into Hardison's glass, "have another drink, if you can hold it," he teases.

"Hold it?" Hardison says, rising to the challenge, "Hold it? I tell you, bruddah, this black boy can hold his drink a-plenty, I'm tellin' you."

"Probably fruity drinks," Parker giggles into her own drink.

"With umbrellas," Sophie agrees, forgetting her scrap with Parker.

Nate just smirks at him. He'd seen the bottle that Eliot had poured into the hacker's glass.

"Hey, fruity drinks are good. Don't knock my fruity drinks," Hardison says, grinning at his teammates' friendly ribbing, "I can take my real drink too," he says, and tips the whole glass back.

_"Oh damn, that burns! Water! I need water! The hell was that?"_

"That was a real drink, boy," Eliot says, with a smirk, hiding the bottle away from sight. "Welcome to bein' a real grown-up. Put some hair on your chest!"

"Grown-up my ass," gasps Hardison. "You're tryin' ta kill me!"

. . . . .

* * *

**Notes and References:**

Rogers said somewhere that Nate isn't the same age as Tim Hutton. I forgot how much apart they are, but that's why the birth year is different here.

In "The Mile High Job," Nate and Sophie mention that they first met (not saw each other – very important distinction) 8 years previously…which would be 2000. That's why Eliot's 25th birthday is in 2000, not 1999, like it was for Kane.

Parker: "The last time I used this rig, Paris 2003." ("The Nigerian Job") I wanted to use that, so I shifted Parker's birthday from Beth Riesgraf's a bit.

**AN:** The end. Thanks should go out to all my readers, but especially to my regular reviewers: **patty cake rocks,** **StellaBelle24, Harm Marie, A Lyrical Dreamer, hope1iz, floralisette, zippy zany, ** (gosh, I love your name! Makes me think of vampires!),** LoveMyShows, Sci F.I. Warper, kt8a, rmonroe, splerison,** and** irma66. **Hope I didn't miss anyone, but if I did, thanks to you, too!


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